Plans for chalet park are approved

An application to build 34 chalets on a site at Low Lane, High Leven, was passed by Stockton Borough Council's planning committee despite a number of objections being raised.

Councillors and local residents had expressed concerns about road safety with increased traffic flow around the steep Leven Bank area and access to the chalet park site.

Speaking at the meeting, Councillor Jean Kirby, who represents the Ingleby Barwick East ward, said: "The application is for 34 chalets to be built and it is assumed that there will be one car for each chalet.

"But, most people have two cars now and that road just cannot take 68 cars going up and down it. Access to the site will be difficult and dangerous."

Councillor Steve Walmsley added: "I know that road very well and it has always been dangerous. Even when there wasn't much traffic on it, there was still a lot of shunting taking place there."

After hearing the application had been approved, he added: "We have been hamstrung by the clowns in the High Court."

Other objections to the plan detailed concerns about impact on wildlife, added pressure on drainage systems and noise pollution.

However, because previous permission had been granted to build a caravan site on the land in 1961, the objections were not deemed to be enough to warrant refusal of the application.

Despite a number of recent planning appeals and objections, the 1961 approved planning permission for the caravan site was upheld by the High Court as still being valid, meaning that developer Cresswell Welch only had to seek permission for a change of use for the land. This permission was granted at the meeting by a vote of six to five.

At the meeting, Councillor Robert Gibson, chairman of the council's planning committee, said that the committee had been "stuck between a rock and a hard place" when it came to considering the application and said the matter was a case of being "damned if you do and damned if you don't".