By Duncan Bick

Last updated at 15:03, Friday, 27 July 2012

Residents of two streets are celebrating after their complaints helped remove the threat of houses being built behind their homes.

David Hurd

Householders on Tree Gardens and Edmonton Close, Brampton, were concerned that a plot on a hill behind them could be covered in new homes. They put their concerns to Carlisle City Council, which has now changed the designation of the land.

One of the residents who put concerns forward was David Hurd, 72, of Tree Gardens, a retired cartographer.

“It’s just a very bad idea and a bad piece of land,” he said. “Unless you were a mountain goat.”

The land was allocated for development, in the authority’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), which details sites around the city council boundaries. This is a technical study which considers the potential areas of land have to be used for housing.

However, they are not formally listed for development, this would require further procedures to be carried out.

The residents’ concerns centred around a number of different issues, including the quality of the soil on the hill.

Mr Hurd said: “Three quarters of the land is on soft soil, the rest is on clay. If you are going to start building houses on soft land then you are definitely in for foundation problems.”

Others included worries about privacy if houses were built uphill from existing homes and access to any building site, which would only be possible from Edmonton Close.

Mr Hurd, who has lived in the area for 10 years, pointed out that houses there were sold with the promise of a quiet neighbourhood.

He estimated that around 25 people submitted concerns to council officials, who after reading them, decided to make the change.

The sites can be viewed online via a map accompanied by text descriptions.

Earlier this week, the graphic showed the land as having no development potential whereas the text said it was developable.

A council spokeswoman said: “We consulted on the SHLAA and had a number of responses. The site in Brampton was a particular concern for local residents and having reconsidered the information (in light of responses received) we have changed the designation of the site in the SHLAA.

“We have an interactive database link with the website and it has updated the category but we haven’t yet updated the text. However we can confirm that we now consider the site unlikely to be developed. We will be updating the text to reflect this.”

Other sites listed as developable in Brampton include land near Gelt Rise, Garth House, Elmfield and Brampton Primary School.

The plan can be found by searching for SHLAA at www.carlisle.gov.uk.

First published at 14:05, Friday, 27 July 2012
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk