Plans for 20 new detached houses turned down for second time

Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporter

Outline plans for 20 new houses have been turned down again, following local opposition.

Carmarthenshire Council has rejected a second application by Suffolk-based developer Omnicorp Ltd which wanted to build the detached homes on sloping land off Penlan Road and Parc-y-Delyn.

There were several objections on traffic, pedestrian safety and wildlife impact grounds. Carmarthen Town Council opposed the application with councillors reiterating their road access concerns.

But planning agents on behalf of Omnicorp Ltd said the revised scheme, accompanied by various reports, addressed the county council’s previous reasons for refusal.

In a design and access statement the agents said the site was largely semi-improved grassland with large areas of scrub and that it had been allocated for housing under the authority’s local development plan.

The statement said the homes would be accessed via a new estate road off Penlan Road and that new pavements and “localised road widening” would take place. It added that six of the proposed 20 houses would be classed as affordable.

It said trees and hedgerows forming the boundary of the site would largely be retained and that a new hedgerow along the northern edge would be created. New trees would also be planted, it said, to mitigate the loss of those which would need to be felled.

It added that a new connection to a public sewer would get rid of foul water and measures to deal with surface water put in place.

Detailed plans for a housing development at the site had been approved by the council in 2012 but the scheme, submitted by an Isle of Man-based applicant, didn’t materialise and elapsed.

Omnicorp Ltd submitted an outline application for 20 houses in June 2023 which the council rejected six months later on four grounds.

Now its latest application has been turned down by the council planning department. The reasons for refusal include a failure by the applicant to provide a road safety audit and interim construction traffic management plan, and a failure to show the scheme would not have an unacceptable impact on conservation and biodiversity.

Woodland

Planning officers said at least 74 trees would need to come down including many forming part of a broadleaved woodland.

“In particular, the applicant has failed to justify why the development could not be accessed via the existing access into the site from the neighbouring Parc-y-Delyn estate that would allow for the retention of existing trees and hedgerows along Parc-y-Delyn and result in less ecological, as well as visual harm,” the council’s planning decision report said. Omnicorp Ltd can appeal the refusal.

Objectors included a couple from nearby Parc Thomas who said Penlan Road was narrow and not suitable in their view for the existing traffic. “If this development goes ahead, there will be close on 200 vehicles using Penlan Road,” said their written objection.