BLISWORTH NEW HOUSES MONITOR

Last Revision on 11 March 2010 of listed Project Entries/Details.

On this web page an attempt will be made to list all the current 'new house' building projects in the parish and in some cases there will eventually be a link to photos and comment page - as has been done in the case of the new houses in the new street called Ladyfield which opens into the Courteenhall Road.

More detail is available on the internet.  South Northamptonshire Council publish a list of planning applications.  Villagers can find this by going to this search page, http://snc.planning-register.co.uk/PlanAppSrch.asp and then selecting Blisworth parish and clicking on 'Submit' lower down on the form.  If you enter nothing else in the form you then get a complete list (over 40 pages), including outline permission applications, with the most recent applications on page 1.  If houses are demolished and replaced with the same number of new ones, or if house(s) are simply given extensive enlargement etc., the projects are not included here.

Project Description - within the confines boundary (in red)

Project finished?

Page or Plan
available here?

1

2

7

8

9

Off Stoke Road, 1 house replacing outbuildings at Pandloss House                 December 2008

Church Lane, 2 houses (also 2 houses on High Street refurbished)                            Jan 2007

Off Towcester Road, 2 large houses on land behind Grafton House                       April 2008

Off Courteenhall Road, 5 houses on plot occupied by St. Michael's                     August 2008

Off Stoke Road, 2 houses (inc. garages) to replace agricultural buildings

Failed appeal: but 1 house near to the Canal was approved.
--------------------------------- 2009 -------------------------------------
Church Lane, new layout for 2 houses replacing 1, 1 extra house.
--------------------------------- 2010 -------------------------------------
Towcester Road, 1 house in existing grounds.

Garage only

No

No

Page

 Plan

 Plan & View

Plan

No

Plan

Plan

Any applications that are withdrawn by the originator or refused by the SNC are removed from the list.  Any project re-submitted on appeal is restored to the list but removed again if that appeal is dismissed - this explains why the list changes so frequently.  If a date is given in the table above it indicates approximately when the project was started.
Please refer to the SNC web pages for more information on an application, or an owner or builder.

          Project Description - outside confines boundary which will be revised in 2011/12

No known application since the one in 2005/6 - that being the special case of Ladyfield - until Nov 2008.

finished?

Plan

1       At Tunnel Hill Farm, agricultural dwelling, 1 house                                            February 2009

Plan

2       At Chapel Hill Fm - in the low lying part, 27 houses outline permission.

Plan

3       At "Railway Cottages" - no. 22 to be restored to the original two, 1 house

No

 Nov 5, 08 Back in August the Parish Council were first approached to consider another SNC survey of the village to gauge how appropriate a second tranche of affordable housing would be.  On Nov 3 a representative of the Social Housing Dept., Ms. L. Welch, gave the council a short presentation in which it was stated that the number of individuals now on the social housing register, with a stated 'link' to Blisworth, had risen to a staggering 75 since the completion of Ladyfield but that the SNC were certainly not looking to build that many houses.  The parish council has been asked to provide suggestions in the first place for location and their immediate response has been that an extension to Ladyfield is the most obvious but there are serious doubts expressed on the disruption and the increase in traffic near the school (five new houses are already being established near there, see item 5 above, that will contribute to traffic pressure).   Parish land on the Towcester Road has been rejected by SNC as being too far from the village centre.  The council agreed to the survey, without a vote being taken, and the survey will be carried out early in 2009.  This time around it will include the question of primary school capacity (apparently omitted in 2005) and a view has been expressed by one councillor that the survey may well conclude that Blisworth is unable to accommodate the project.
    The Ladyfield project was actually planned to not provide affordable housing specifically for single people.  In this second survey which took place January 2009 it is evident that small units that are rented from Northamptonshire Homes are favoured.  The results of the survey indicate a need for 34 houses.  Although 39 were suggested from the survey, a few were deemed not suitable claimants.  Only two of the 34 would be taken up on a share-purchase (association) basis and remainder except for 5 larger houses were 29 small single or double bedroom bungalows and flats.  When the architects design the new estate there will be some variation from this ideal, tending to a response more in keeping with county (SNC) ideals but it will be up to our parish council to resist this; surely that will be re-assuring.   The actual timescales for the project are not decided and at present nor is the location.  The 34 houses will virtually satisfy the SNC call for about 40 new houses in the village, see item B below.   

March 30th, 09  New planning guides for villages will reflect the review of rural housing development in the light of the current central governmental pressure to provide a 5 year forward plan for developable land.   As yet, there is a near two year shortfall of suggested development and there isn't yet a proper 5 year plan.  SNC are forced to issue, in lieu, short-term 'suggestions' for 17 village developments.  So, now available for our consultation is a document from SNC, download brief version here, that ranks Blisworth as reasonably well able to accommodate new housing and they come up with a rough sufficiency of a 5% increase, ie. 40 houses which would be built outside our VCB.   As many as 40 houses will require roughly 4 acres of land.  In the map below there is a 10 acre area marker as a guide to the significance of 4 acres.  

The Parish Council had an opportunity to consult with SNC until end-May 2009.

By mid-October nothing much happened except that the PC resolved to take the initiative and recommend 7 sites as location for the outlined affordable houses, doing this in a walkabout with a SNC planner.  Areas considered included that behind Ladyfield, the newly proposed "estate" on Chapel Hill Fm and land well to the east of the village.  See sites A to G in the map below.  Sites A, F and G are discounted because they are too far away from the centre of the village.  Site B is rated valuable open space.  The afor-mentioned proposed estate (Chapel Hill Farm, see chf in the map and item 2 above) is for 27 houses, 11 of which may be social affordable and so contributes a part-solution.  The PC has however found fault with the practicalities of this project and the possible dangers involved in making a junction at the steepest part of Chapel Lane and so objected to the development.  The decisions was taken in January 2010 to give the proposal the go-ahead anyway.

Field Map for area around Blisworth - based on Google Maps