'Ducks swimming in floodwater – and they want to build homes here?' Outcry from Derbyshire villagers
Campaigners in a Derbyshire village have stressed they “are not pushovers” and “will not be walked over” in their fight against homes plans on a flood-hit former toxic tip
Village campaigners “are not pushovers” and have stressed they “will not be walked over” in their fight against homes planned for a flood-hit contaminated site.
Allison Homes East Midlands is the firm relaunching a planned 93-home development off Plumptre Road and Hall Road, Langley Mill.
The plot in question is currently an agricultural field, bounded by the A610, the River Erewash, woodland and marshland which residents say frequently floods.
Five years ago, Amber Valley Borough Council approved plans from Derby housebuilder Wheeldon Brothers for 93 homes on the site.
However, planning applications lapse after three years and residents say no work ever started.
Allison Homes dispute those claims and have now applied to the council to say the planning permission remains active because a brick building on the plot had been demolished during the three years of the permission being granted, signifying a start on the project.
Core concerns from residents include flooding, contamination, loss of green space, affordable housing and protection of Great Crested Newts, which are said to have proliferated in the area.
Residents claim vast amounts of undocumented waste have been dumped on the land over the years, with the issue discussed at length when the application was approved in 2020.
Former councillor Ron Ashton had said: “I can remember this site when anybody and everybody tipped anything on this site. It wasn’t monitored in any sense of way.”
Resident Abi Chambers had said “an unregulated, untold quantity of contaminated material” was tipped on the site through the 70s, before obtaining a licence for “commercial industrial building waste”
Earlier this year Wheeldon Brothers were allowed to reduce the proposed affordable homes on the site down from 14 homes to eight homes, having applied to scrap the provision entirely.
In 2022 they had already been granted permission to reduce the agreed 27 affordable homes down to 14.
Sheena Trower, a former borough councillor and parish council clerk who has lived next to the site for 30 years, said: “This is an important part of our wonderful area and people living there are going to suffer.
“It is an important part of our landscape and they have already taken a lot of Langley Mill already.
“We have had enough. This area was open cast, a black pit hill, then colliery, they slag heaps and now it is agricultural land
“We are going to make a fuss about it. We haven’t got a lot left in Langley Mill and we are not going to lie down and take it.
“Taking the affordable housing out if it removes any of the benefit for Langley Mill whatsoever.
“They think ‘oh, it’s Langley Mill, it doesn’t matter,’ but we are not pushovers.”
Graeme Pope, who has lived opposite the site for two years, said Great Crested Newts had been found across the site and in most gardens opposite the plot.
He said the police had advised him to report any disturbance of the newts’ protected habitat, with Mr Pope claiming insufficient protections or assessments were in place.
Allison Homes say it takes environmental obligations “extremely seriously” and measures would be implemented if required.
Cllr Darren Furness, county councillor for the area, said: “They want to turn this green space into grey space and once it is gone it is gone for the next generations.
“It is going to lead to a further deterioration in people’s mental wellbeing.
“Things like this development, solar farms and pylons all represent destruction of our green spaces.”
Residents are concerned at the potential contaminants which may be disturbed if work was to start on the site, exposing remnants of what they dub a “massive tip”.
They also say flooding since the approval of the plans has worsened, including significant disruption during Storm Babet in 2023, when ducks were said to have been swimming across the fields in the deep floodwater.
Cllr Furness said: “It is only when it goes bang will people start asking questions.
“People don’t feel that the right people are listening to them, they are being ignored.”
A spokesperson at Allison Homes said: “Allison Homes does not own or control the site in question.
“A section 73 application has been submitted with regards to house types designs.
“The planning approval was obtained by the previous developer, and Allison homes will ensure that all the relevant construction mitigation measures are in place to facilitate the planning approval process.
“We take our environmental obligations extremely seriously and any newt or other environmental mitigation measures required would be implemented onsite.”