HOW COLNE GROWS

Colne must grow if young people, like Brooke, are to be able to live in their home town when they grow up and have families of their own.

The way Colne grows is so important, as it will change the town for ever.  Pendle Council has previously set Colne a proportion of its overall Housing Target and this is being reviewed and revised after it was decided to develop a new Local Plan for the Borough with a lower housing target to reflect the new circumstances post-pandemic and post-Brexit.

We decided that we would prefer the town to grow organically and within the settlement boundary.  None of the sites we have identified are that big – we didn’t want large, soulless housing estates gobbling up the countryside with no relationship to the town itself.  We originally identified a wide range of potential building sites right across the town via Pendle Council’s SHLAA and following our own Call For Sites, as well as following brainstorming with locals.

We then carried out a formal scoring exercise, taking into account numerous criteria and we included only those sites that scored highest.

 Policy 6 of our Draft Plan lists the final selection of 15 sites which will provide land for an estimated 147 new homes (145 on Brownfield Land i.e. 99%) based on an average density of 30 dwellings per hectare (ha.). On some sites, densities will be higher e.g. sites where conversion is more suitable or where the likely houses developed would be more urban.  Even if all these sites don’t come forward over the next decade, we always see other small sites coming forward and we are well ahead of Pendle’s likely target given the developments built over the last 7 years (some of which would definitely have been rejected under our Neighbourhood Plan).

 For sites that we want to see developed, we have formulated a Design Code (see Policy 3 and the separate Report) to ensure that local character is considered and local distinctiveness is enhanced and protected.  Our Design Codes have been significantly influenced by local precedents and also national best practice materials.

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