Building up pressure

Bingham could receive a windfall of £236,000 as part of controversial plans for 90 new homes.

Despite this, there has been widespread opposition to the plans.

The Crown Estate submitted outline plans for a mix of houses and flats on 6.8 acres off Tithby Road.

The application, which was recommended for approval, was due to be discussed by Rushcliffe Borough Council’s planning committee last night.

As part of the permission a legally binding agreement would see the applicant giving £236,000 to the town’s community, chest, which already stands at £1.2m.

A further £82,800 would be given towards healthcare, £22,500 for play and amenity space and £30,000 per hectare as a transport contribution.

The application has received objections from Bingham Town Council, pressure group Community Concern and individual residents.

The chairman of Bingham Business Club, Mr Adrian Malpass, said the borough council, in recommending approval, did not care about Bingham.

He said: “It is just ridiculous. The last thing Bingham needs is more houses. What we want is places for people to work, better traffic and parking management, more shops and certainly we need more offices.

“Which part of ‘Bingham’s infrastructure cannot cope’ don’t they understand?

“It seems Rushcliffe has no interest in anywhere east of Radcliffe. They just dump houses out here.”

Bingham’s community chest money has been earmarked to build a new community centre.

Mr Malpass suggested asking the developer to build a centre as part of the planning permission, instead of giving money towards it.

The town council listed several objections to the application after an extraordinary meeting to consider the plans.

The council felt the development would have a major adverse impact on local facilities and would lead to an unacceptable increase in homes without improvements to the infrastructure.

They felt it would create more traffic problems, would lead to further overloading of Bingham facilities and see additional cars entering and leaving the site.

They also felt the plans ignored pedestrian issues on Tithby Road, not enough open space was provided in the proposal and raised concerns about noise.

A town councillor, Mr John Eagles, was convinced the planning committee would go along with the officers’ recommendation for approval.

But he said: “I still feel Bingham is getting too big. The infrastructure is not there to support the growth of housing.”

Eight letters of objection were also received from neighbouring properties and two were received from Community Concern.

The pressure group said the plans should not have been considered until improvements were made to Bingham’s infrastructure.

The borough planning officer’s report, said the development would usually be unacceptable because it was in an agricultural field.

However, this application was considered acceptable because of its location on the edge of the town and near the A52, and because it would address the shortage of low-cost houses in Bingham.

The report said the highways authorities had not objected to the plans and fears about the pressure on infracture had been considered through the legal agreement.