A 54 home plan on the former Louth Town Football Club site look set for approval next week. However, a decision on developers’ attempts to ditch a replacement sports facility will go into extra time.
Members of East Lindsey District Council’s planning committee will be told that a condition on developer GBM’s original outline permission for 98 homes on the Park Avenue site – which requires it to provide replacement facilities – “remains in force”.
In a report before councillors, officers say: “The scheme before members today may not be commenced until such time as the replacement sports facility is either completed, the condition varied or removed by the local planning authority.
“Whilst it is the case that a new application has been submitted to vary this condition that application will be determined in due course, but for now the condition exists as set out on the outline approval.
“Its compliance or otherwise is not a consideration for this reserved matters application.”
The stadium was hit by an arson attack in August 2016. Photo: The Bootiful Game Twitter
Officers go on to recommend approval for the plans, now at reserve stage, saying they are “of an acceptable design”.
They say the application satisfies some of the conditions imposed, and meets the requirements of planning policies.
In its application to have the condition removed GBM says the facilities “are no longer needed” because the team is no longer playing at a level to justify the requirement.
Instead it proposes a £49,000 contribution towards ELDC’s plans to enhance facilities on London Road.
Louth Town Football Club, however, says it is “desperately trying to get back into Louth” and needs the facilities to play at a higher level.
Amended plans for how the housing would be laid out.
Louth Town Council has unanimously objected to the housing plans because of the condition regarding the replacement facilities and the loss of the sports ground in general.
They say the money offered by the landowner is “not sufficient” and that “only a like-for-like facility should be accepted”.
They also have concerns over the extra traffic, drainage and the development being “overbearing, over-intensive and unsuitable.”
Sport England have also objected to the latest application by GBM over the lack of replacement facilities.
Since outline approval in January 2016, two attempts to vary the condition have been refused by ELDC, while two applications to provide facilities on Fairfield Industrial Estate and London Road Athletics Club have been approved.
It’s hoped the application to remove the replacement facilities condition will go to committee in January.
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite