Modified 200-home North Thoresby plans set for approval

East Lindsey District Council planning officers sent Cyden Homes’ plans for 198 homes on Ludborough Road back to the drawing board in July after fears the development would be too isolated from the rest of the village.

An officer report before councillors next Thursday (December 1) is now recommending approval after the developer held meetings with local representatives and made several amendments to the plans.

They include the relocation of terraced buildings to be more central to the site with detached buildings replacing them to the east, additional planting, realignment of the footpath to “reflect likely desire lines” and enhanced biodiversity.

In their report, officers said: “The general conclusions of the Officer Report presented to the Planning Committee in July still prevail.

“Given the status of the site as allocated for development, and its noted limitations, concern about the principle of an estate type development are fully understood and appreciated, but are not therefore considered to constitute a sufficiently robust reason for refusal of the proposal.”

More than 160 objections submitted to the previous meeting mainly revolved around whether the development was the right size, how the local road network would be affected and the environmental impacts along with comments around flooding and infrastructure.

Following the amendments, there have been nearly 20 further comments with residents still fearing that Ludborough Road may become a bottleneck and that speed limits are too high.

There are requests for more bungalows to be included and for walking routes to local services to be promoted.

The application has also received an objection from Sport England who say the development could impact on a nearby cricket ground.

However, officers said that since the objection was submitted the applicant had been in contact with the sports organisation to discuss mitigation measures.