PROTEST FAILS TO HALT HOMES
Village Voice No 271 June 2015
Melbourne & District
Planners give go-ahead for yet more new houses
newton fallowell
raising the standard of estate agency
MELBOURNE ESTATE AGENTS Residential Sales and Lettings Tel: 01332 865696 Melbourne: 01332 865696
INSIDE STORIES Animal magic for pupils – Page 6
by Lucy Stephens
MELBOURNE is to get a further 24 homes, after council planners gave the housing development proposals on Station Road the green light at a meeting this month – despite heavy local protest.
Bargains at yard sale – Page 7
The decision to approve Alexander Bruce Estate’s plans for the homes comes after the same developer was granted permission to build 22 houses on Station Road last year, bringing its total number of new houses in that area of Melbourne to 46. South Derbyshire District Council’s planning committee agreed that the latest development could be built in spite of 33 letters of objection from local residents, pointing out well-documented fears that Melbourne cannot cope with so many new houses. Worries over extra housing have been especially centred around risk of flooding – which has already affected some new houses – and the fact that Melbourne’s doctors’ surgery and schools are straining at the seams. The planning report, which recommended that councillors should support the development, included details of Melbourne’s schools, saying that according to latest projections the number of children applying to the infant school over the next five years was likely to exceed its capacity, and that the school would not have room for the extra children living in the new houses. The document went on to recommend that money should be given to the schools for the “adaptation of a classroom” in order to provide room for extra children. But governors at Melbourne Infant School say that an extra classroom is not the answer since it does not address the fact that the school building is simply not big enough, when consideration is taken of factors such
Celebrating VE Day – Pages 12-13 OUTSIDE the South Derbyshire District Council offices in Swadlincote are a group taking part in a silent protest over new developments in Melbourne and King’s Newton. They are (l-r): David Wilson, Fiona Wilson, Patrick Prentice, Cnthia Twiss, Barry Thomas, Mair Aitkenhead, Stuart Wilson and Helen Saunders.
as the size of the hall, number of toilets, and width of corridors. Dave Smith, chair of the governing board at the infant school, told the Village Voice that these concerns had been raised with county education leaders. He said: “It’s the board’s concern that the infant school infrastructure could not cope with a big influx of numbers.
“Our concerns have been forwarded to the county. An extra classroom is not the answer, we need more infrastructure to cope.” Last month Village Voice told of Melbourne Health Centre’s plans to extend the surgery to cope with so many new people living in the area, which were rejected by the NHS.
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