Councillors defer planning permission for Dundonald houses over road safety concerns
A “complex” Dundonald housing site has caused concerns over a threshold for traffic lights to be installed at an “unsafe” road junction.
Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council’s planning committee has demanded clarity for the signals to be installed at the Millmount development on the Upper Newtownards Road junction.
A spokesperson for the developer said: “The application will not prejudice road safety. There are no planning reasons to refuse the application. “The trigger for any traffic signalisation, in terms of units being occupied has not been reached. Once the trigger is reached the signalisation will be delivered. “The overall planning permission for Millmount does not affect this application.” The application before the committee was for 23 new homes to be built in the Millmount area. An estimated £120m investment at the 90 acre Millmount Village site has already seen two separate approvals for 483 homes in 2017 followed by 293 residential units in 2020. The Dundonald site has a target for almost 800 homes on completion.
The chamber heard that a threshold of 218 houses being occupied had not been met, with a spokesperson for the developer confirming it was “emphatically below” at just 216. However, the site has had multiple applications with varying conditions. An officer said: “There is a long complex planning history. “If you visited Millmount today, you would see more than 218 homes occupied within the red lines of this application, but it is whether or not they were built under different planning permission and that is the challenge we have to reconcile.” A council legal adviser added: "DfI say they currently have no road safety issues”.
Cllr Nicholas Trimble said: “Multiple applications have overlapped the red lines on the site. The goalposts have shifted.” Ald. Martin Gregg commented: “I am not sure I have enough information to make a decision. I feel that this is an unsafe junction. “In January/February, I said that there had been three road accidents the PSNI did not record and there has been another on June 16."On matters of road safety I feel I don’t have enough information and I would propose we defer for clarity on house numbers and the DfI threshold for traffic lights.” A majority (5-3) voted to defer the application.