180-home Perton housing plan set for go-ahead
Plans to expand the South Staffordshire village of Perton with up to 180 homes have been recommended for approval, despite residents’ concerns over roads.
Birmingham-based developer LF Perton lodged outline plans for an 18-acre agricultural site on the western fringe of Perton, near Wolverhampton, in October last year.
Those plans look set to be approved by South Staffordshire’s planning committee on 21 July, despite attracting the ire of the area’s MP, Mike Wood, who described road arrangements for the development as “wholly unsuitable”.
Under the plans, residents would access the development via Wrottesley Village immediately to the south of the site, for which planning permission for 220 homes was granted in 2018, with building work on the first phase of the scheme now largely completed by Severn Homes.
Kingswinford and South Staffordshire MP Wood said this would “exacerbate congestion and increase accident risk”, adding that the extra traffic would a turn a quiet residential area into a “congested through-route”.
“Reliance on a single access point for such a large development raises serious concerns about emergency access and resilience during roadworks or incidents,” he said.
“The impact on the area’s character must be considered. Wrottesley Village is a small, cohesive community. The scale and layout of this proposal will fundamentally alter its character.”
Despite acknowledging 25 objections from residents over increased traffic, pedestrian safety and parking pressures, planning officers said in their report that highways officers had raised no objection to the scheme on safety grounds, following a “thorough” review of arrangements for the proposals.
However, an emergency access point, requested by Staffordshire County Council due to the “cumulative scale of development”, has now been included in revised proposals.
The scheme has been recommended for approval, ahead of a decision by South Staffordshire District Council’s planning committee on 21 July.
The illustrative masterplan for the site was created by Birmingham urban designers, landscape architects and heritage consultants, Node. Carter Jonas LLP provided planning consultancy for the application, with the project team also including Pell Frischmann, Ecology Solutions, Transport Planning Associates, Remada, Kernon Countryside Consultants, and MHP Design.
Documents relating to the application can be found on the council’s website using reference 25/00839/OUTM
