Erewash – your views on its future

Residents are being urged to have their say on the future of the borough now that the green light has been given for a second round of public consultation on Erewash Borough Council’s proposed sites for new housing over the next two decades.

At the Extraordinary meeting held on Thursday 25 March, councillors gave the go-ahead for further consultation to get underway to make sure the public have their voices heard on the detailed projects that will help shape local areas for generations to come. The consultation will be open until 10 May to help gather as many views as possible.

All relevant documents, full details of the sites and an on-line form to submit views can be found at www.erewash.gov.uk/localplan  Residents without internet access can request a printed copy of the consultation document from the Council.

Following last year’s 12-week consultation (extended to July 2020), the council made some changes to its original preferred options for sites to meet the borough’s housing needs.

The original proposals included building new homes on the Green Belt at four local sites – west of Acorn Way in Oakwood; adjacent to Cotmanhay Wood, Ilkeston; a site south-east of Kirk Hallam; and land north of Lock Lane, Sawley

The council have now approved the recommendation that Lock Lane is dropped from a new revised list of options for housing growth, with the council’s report saying no solutions have been found to development issues caused by the busy low level freight rail crossing near the site.

Councillors were also advised that another proposed Green Belt site would replace Lock Lane in the next round of consultation – a site on the borough’s boundary with Derby City north of Spondon alongside Spondon Wood.

The report also outlines further proposed changes to the earlier preferred sites:

• An extension to the original development at Kirk Hallam, due to a now reduced area of housing capacity on four fields north of Cotmanhay and west of Cotmanhay Wood. The owner of land east of the Wood, which was also included in the original consultation, has said they do not wish to develop their land for housing.
• It says extension of the site south west of Kirk Hallam would sit alongside land within the proposed Kirk Hallam Relief Road and help with the go-ahead of that road.

The brownfield Stanton Regeneration Site will remain as a proposal for a 1,000 home community south of Lows Lane. This follows the sale of half of the former Ironworks site to the north of Lows Lane for employment development.

It is hoped a second consultation would lead to a full proposed Core Strategy by September this year and that initial house building would begin, at the earliest, by 2022/23.