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Search the Public Notice PortalIn October Hyndburn Borough Council received almost £30m to pave the way for the development of Huncoat Garden Village.
The funding was the final snag preventing the development, the largest in East Lancashire, from getting underway, and will go towards infrastructure such as roads and utilities in and around the village.
Currently, Huncoat is a small village with a population of around 5,000, but with the addition of around 1,800 homes over the next 15 years, that village feel could be eroded away.
We asked for your thoughts on the development and received this response from Huncoat resident Nick Whittaker, who feels the development will turn his home into a "mini town with no facilities."
Nick said: "I have lived in Huncoat all my life and have seen many schemes to build on the land around the power station, and all of them fail after millions spent on consultations and work investigating the proposals.
"There needs to be infrastructure in place and I'm afraid £30m isn't going to be enough.
"Building what was proposed 1,800 houses, which keeps being moved to 2,000+, is in many people's opinion not acceptable when the road network, for one, isn't compatible for another 4,000 cars at any time of day as the A56 is often shut, and all the traffic needs to go through Accrington to get to Manchester.
"The council have not included a new school in the plans [an extension to the current school is proposed] or any other needed businesses such as a doctors or a dentist. Where are all these people supposed to go? There needs to be land allocated to build if needed and in the plan there is nothing allocated.
"They tell us they want people to buy these homes to commute to Manchester. What help is this for an ailing Accrington town centre?
"The council had a consultation costing thousands of pounds. I asked the leader of the council at a recent meeting "the consultation stated 61 per cent of people in Huncoat were against the garden village, why are we still going ahead with it in the same guise?" to be told "we wanted feedback."
"But, at the end of the day, they don't listen to the feedback.
"I have lived in Huncoat all my life. It's a village now and will not be a village if this goes ahead, it will be a mini town with no facilities."
Plans for the development include affordable homes, a local centre, highway improvements including a new road, additional school provision, new sports pitches and play areas, cycle and pedestrian routes, plus new and enhanced formal and informal open spaces.
National Highways had initially objected to the plans, saying that capacity at Junction 8 of the M65 was already at its peak without the addition of the new homes close by.
However, that objection was removed after it was granted around £3m to work on upgrading the junction to cope with the added volume of traffic.
What are your thoughts on the development? Let us know in the comments or if you would like to discuss for a story, email nat.goodlad@newsquest.co.uk
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