Revised plans submitted for housing on former nursery site

Fresh plans to demolish a former Wrexham nursery and use the site for housing have been submitted.

In an outline application lodged with Wrexham Council it has been proposed the vacant Scallywags day nursery, Pentre Maelor, is demolished and six new homes are built on the land.

The vacant day nursery site is described as being subject to vandalism – with scattered content of a storage building “all over the site”.

Initial plans to build seven houses on the site were rejected at the end of 2018 by Lawrence Isted, head of environment and planning at Wrexham Council due to “insufficient information” being submitted.

At the time Mr Isted said: “Insufficient information has been submitted with the application to adequately assess whether the proposed residential development and its occupants would not be unduly harmed by virtue of noise impacts from any commercial or industrial activities arising from the Wrexham Industrial Estate.

“Insufficient information has been submitted with the application to adequately assess the impact of the development on Great Crested Newts. In the absence of this information, it has not been demonstrated whether harm would arise to the Great Crested News and what, if any mitigation is proposed.

“The proposal by virtue of its design and layout is considered would be car dominated when viewed from the street scene, appearing visually uninteresting and would not enhance or positively contribute to visual amenities of the locality.”

The revised application submitted for consideration includes a reduction in the number of proposed properties from seven to six.

It also includes improvements on the existing access to the parking area to “allow vehicles to pass and park within the area currently allocated as parking for the nursery”. The application adds that a “separate access point is to be created to the Southern side of the side to allow off street parking to be provided to Plots 1 & 2.”

In terms of the initial comments about parking from the head of environment and planning, the applicants state: “Parking provision was previously illustrated to the frontage of each individual dwelling which meant a vast amount of hard standing added to the street scene.

“We are aiming to enhance the current parking arrangements for the site providing parking for the residential dwellings as part of this application. This has allowed the dwellings to be re-positioned closer to the highway improving the rear amenity space.”

The outline plans for the design of the properties are in line with the initial application, with two and three bedroom properties to be of a mews style.

The design and access statement concludes: “We feel this planning application should be looked favourably upon as we feel there are no justifiable reasons for refusal.

“Support of this application on a brownfield site would allow the local authority to reduce their deficit on new dwellings required for the county borough.

“Development of this parcel of land within the community will vastly improve on the current characteristics of the site, adding to the natural surveillance for the area.”

The application will be considered for approval at a later date.