Plans for new homes and woodland walk

A developer has applied for planning permission to build a new housing estate, with a woodland walk, in Market Rasen.
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Tom Pickering of Skylark Homes Ltd has submitted plans to West Lindsey District Council that, if approved, would see 48 new homes, with public green spaces and a woodland walk, built in Willingham Road.

The site, currently Glebe Farm, is opposite Market Rasen Racecourse and south-west of Willingham 
Woods.

The application states: “The site at Glebe Farm, Willingham Road, Market Rasen, offers a unique opportunity for residential development in Market Rasen that can provide a locally distinctive, high quality development, in keeping with, and supporting the local economy and existing facilities and services.

“It also provides additional community benefit in terms of the proposed woodland walk and its unique position neighbouring Market Rasen Racecourse and Willingham Woods offers an exclusive opportunity.

“The proposed project will provide a sensitive re-development of the existing site, enhancing the existing 
setting.”

According to the planning application, the aim is to create a place designed around a landscape rather than merely a housing development.

And the application says the site is not at risk of flooding and that the proposed woodland walk ‘improves the accessibility of local residents to Willingham 
Woods’.

But the site is not named as a development location in the draft Central Lincolnshire Local Plan.

As part of the planning application a survey has been carried out by Ecology & Forestry Ltd.

This states that development could result in the loss of swallow nesting areas.

And it adds: “Given the likely presence of foraging bats within the survey site, some form of mitigation for loss of habitat whilst not a legal obligation would be of conservation benefit.

“The installation of a total of four bat roost units, across the development, within the brickwork of selected properties is recommended.”

A small public consultation has already been carried out and the developer says the proposal, in particular the woodland walk, got ‘positive feedback’.

Following this, the developer added a pond to the proposal - in a wooded area at the North Eastern part of the 
site.

At the moment a 40mph speed limit starts adjacent to the Western boundary of the site.

It is proposed that consideration should be made by the Highway Authority to move the speed limit East along Willingham Road so it starts before the proposed site access.

The proposals are at an outline planning stage of development and specific house types and mixes are not 
known.