Plans to build units on a Thornaby industrial estate have overcome objections about ecology and wildlife to gain approval by Stockton Council.
The authority gave planning permission for North East Property Partnerships Ltd to build the units near Fleck Way at Teesside Industrial Estate. The two outline plans proposed units for office, industrial, storage or distribution use on the “well-established development with a variety of businesses” near Thornaby and Ingleby Barwick.
One of the plans put forward “an industrial development totalling up to 9,632sqm” on a vacant 3.7-hectare plot of land. Planning officers said in their report: “The site is surrounded by land and buildings which are in industrial use and include buildings used offices, industrial units and warehousing.”
Councillor Ray Godwin, representing Stainsby Hill, supported both plans, saying: “This scheme offers increased investment and improves future potential and opportunities within the estate. This is vital for its continued success.”
However, there were objections on the grounds of conservation, wildlife, ecology, biodiversity and cultural heritage. One wrote: “The planning application clearly does not genuinely appear to be engaging with issue of the biodiversity that would be destroyed on site should the application be passed.
“It is frustrating to have to be objecting to development on what are effectively tiny pieces of land within Stockton, but if landowners were more proactive about managing areas of their land for biodiversity and the council had better oversight of where important biodiversity areas exist, volunteers like me wouldn’t have to be fighting to defend every last scrap that we have left in the Tees Valley. It would not be difficult or expensive for landowners and the council to take a genuine interest in the cultural heritage of the area in which they operate.”
Another objector raised concerns with noise, dust, wind-blown litter pollution, drainage. And Joshua Styles, project coordinator of the North-west Rare Plant Initiative and an acting principal ecologist and botanical specialist, suggested a survey to determine whether the site includes “the rarest form of lowland meadows remaining in Britain”, which he said may qualify as “irreplaceable habitats”.
‘Not classed as an irreplaceable habitat’
However council officers said the species were “not considered to meet the full characteristics” of the historic meadows, saying in their report: “Lowland meadow is not classed by Natural England/Defra as an irreplaceable habitat.
“The application is not a Local Wildlife Site and is an allocated employment site in the local plan and therefore whilst the comments received are noted they cannot preclude development and hold limited weight in the determination of this application.”
Fran Evans from the Campaign to Protect Rural England North and East Yorkshire (CPRENEY) said they were “fully supportive” of one of the plans in principle but said: “It is disappointing that no evidence of a biodiversity net gain assessment has been undertaken.”
She said in the second plan an ecologist had shown species of birdlife were on the site and “the council should ensure that they are suitably satisfied with the proposed mitigation”. She also expressed concern about the impact of construction on ancient woodland at Stainsby Wood.
She said: “CPRENEY acknowledges policy support for the location of the development, however, has concerns in relation to the environmental impacts of the proposal including on loss of potential priority habitat of national conservation significance.”
The plans were approved with conditions covering areas like travel and traffic management plans, drainage, surface water, tree protection, environmental management, ecology, wildlife, biodiversity, energy efficiency, noise, land contamination and building works.
Lichfields, the agent for the developer, has been contacted for a comment.
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