Grimsby West Masterplan: decision deferred by council cabinet

A MASTERPLAN detailing the proposed ‘Grimsby West’ development site has been discussed at a North East Lincolnshire Council Cabinet meeting.

After considering the paper, Cabinet members voted not to approve the Masterplan straight away.  Instead, they deferred any decision until points raised at a recent scrutiny panel were answered by the private developers behind the scheme.

The Grimsby West proposal includes 3,500 new homes set around a country park with open space, a link road and new schools, stretching from the A46 to the west of Morrisons through to the A1136 west of Wybers Wood.

The site is allocated in the Local Plan 2013 to 2032 (Adopted 2018) as a Strategic Housing Site under Policy 14.

This policy within the Local Plan requires a Masterplan for the Grimsby West site to be submitted to the Council before planning applications for development on the site are determined.  A masterplan is not a planning application but outlines a vision and guidelines for the overall development.

Now complete and published, the Grimsby West Masterplan was initially discussed by members of North East Lincolnshire Council’s Transport, Infrastructure and Strategic Housing Scrutiny Panel.

Councillors on the Panel voiced concern in three areas:

1. Flood risk and waterflow and pollution into the River Freshney;

2. The need for the completion of a Traffic Assessment;

3. The need for more graphic detail on the Freshney Valley Country Park.

Those concerns and comments were then considered by Cabinet members, who met tonight to make their decision on the plan. After hearing the points raised, they went against a report paper recommendation to approve the Masterplan and instead agreed on the deferment.

The developers will now be asked to amend the Masterplan to address the above issues.

Following the Cabinet vote and decision, the Portfolio Holder for Housing, Infrastructure and Transport, Cllr Stewart Swinburn, said: “As a council we must ensure we take the appropriate and correct advice and follow all the necessary and statutory steps to consider plans of this nature and that is what we are doing and will continue to do.”

• Grimsby West is a private development however due to the number of inquiries, the council has a factual question and answer at: Grimsby West | NELC