Sefton Council approved over 300 houses to be built on Liverpool Road at last nights meeting

The planning meeting at Bootle Town Hall last night, Wednesday 26th September regarding the building of over 300 homes on Liverpool Road in Formby was voted for unanimously in favour by our Formby Labour Councillers. The application site, to the west of the Formby Bypass, covers some 12.3 hectares - the equivalent of 15 football pitches.  

Cllr Denise Dutton, Deputy Leader of Conservative Group attended the meeting. Cllr Dutton said: “Sefton Labour Councillers voted unanimously in favour of building 304 houses on greenbelt land on Liverpool Road, Formby. Shame on you Cllrs Catie Page and Carla Thomas! That site is a 'flood zone' and should not be built on!! I made the point that no provision had been made for an educational contribution from the developers so where are all these additional children from both Andrews Lane and Liverpool Road supposed to be schooled? There are also the flooding and traffic issues, not to mention that no provision was made for additional school places but accordingly to Cllr Page, Formby has a surplus of school places so that should cover that then!!”

Cllr Simon Jamieson said: “In the photo is Cllr Catie Paige voting against the wishes of her residents wishes. She actually criticised the traffic surveys and then remembered she had to vote as told by her Bootle masters. It is a disgrace that no ward Cllr spoke against.”

Parish Councillor Derek Baxter said: “I spoke out at the Planning Meeting last night commenting on behalf of the Parish Council, in reference to the considerable objection I submitted on their behalf. The standard of reports produced in support of this application were some of the worst I have seen in 5 years of commenting on Planning applications for Formby Parish Council. The ecology report was as much as 3 years out of date and the land had changed used from intensive agriculture to fallow land. This should have sparked a new ecological survey. Both the manual traffic survey and the automatic surveys were heavily disrupted by road works. This could lead to significantly under estimating the traffic flow predictions used to defend the decision to build. “

“The Developers flooding model was so far removed from the government flood alert predictions that they lacked credibility. The Parish Council submitted a picture of the Environment Agency flood warning produced for 2015 Storm Frank a 1 in 30 year storm, this clearly showed the development site at risk from a breach of Downholland Brook. However the developers model showed no risk to the site of a breach in Downholland Brook for a 1 in 100 year storm intensity plus a margin for climate change, this would equate to a storm 4 times the intensity of storm Frank the worst storm to hit the UK since the famous 1985 event that Michael Fish famously told the country not to worry about!”

“The Development relies on the small Altcar (not the big Alt Mouth) pumping station which is due to be closed down by the Envirionment Agency in the next few years, and also requires water to go through spyphon under Downholland Brook, these are prone to blocking and very quickly become silted up and are expensive to maintain. Despite this no money was provided by the developer for its upkeep. I suspect all of these additional expenses will appear on resident’s Council Tax Bills in the coming few years. This will be salt in the wounds as they wait in the ever lengthening log jam trying to get in and out of our town.” 

“The Labour group on the Planning committee voted en masse to approve this application including our own local Labour Councillor Catie Paige, the newly elected Ravenmeols Labour Councillor Nina Killen was a no show and Bill Esterson failed to send comments in objecting to the development. I hope residents will remember this when they go to the polls next May.”

Residents need to remember actions like this and be more selective when they vote for Councillors next time around. Don't vote Party, vote Individual Integrity - whichever national party you vote for usually. As said by @SimplyFormby