Mayor: '˜Listen to the people of Louth' over new homes

The outline planning application was discussed at a meeting of Louth Town Council’s planning committee last 
Tuesday (January 3), where Mayor of Louth, Councillor Eileen Ballard, led the rallying cry against the proposal.

Coun Ballard said: “We are absolutely fed up of all these houses that are being landed on us because of the fact that we can’t build on 
the coast.

“The heart of the town can’t cope with all these extra houses. Nothing at all has changed; the infrastructure cannot cope.

“Why can’t they listen to the people of the town?”

The 500-home application had previously been discussed by councillors at a meeting in August, and was strenuously opposed on various grounds including flooding concerns, traffic issues, the visual impact, water supply issues, and ecological concerns.

Since the town council’s previous discussion on the plans, an amendment was added to include an access road between Brackenborough Road and the Fairfield Industrial Estate.

Coun Andrew Leonard said this access road would create problems. He said: “The object of having an industrial estate is not to create a rat run for a developer who wants to put a housing estate opposite, so it should not be able to for that reason whatsoever.

“Whilst people might think its a wonderful idea to create a relief road that cuts across the industrial estate, 
actually it will create the same carnage that we’ve got down at the other end of the junctions now, so nobody 
will be any better off.

“It’s taking it out from the industrial estate straight into a pair of double bends that have historically been fatal for some people, so it’s 
just a non-starter.”

Coun Leonard added that the proposed development site is ‘probably the flattest part of Louth you can find’, and suggested that flooding 
issues would be ‘aggravated 
by that fact’.

Coun Jill Makinson-Sanders said that ‘the sustainability box is not ticked’ for the application, noting that schools, doctors, roads and sewerage are overburdened.

She added: “These people don’t even care about Louth. They’re only interested in profit at the end of the day, and it doesn’t matter how much they mess up the life of the rest of the town.

“That is not good planning in my book; good planning is being a good neighbour and doing the right thing for your town. It’s so sad.”

The planning committee voted to continue to object to the application.