COUNCILLORS want to visit a “dead end” before deciding if four new houses that have been 15 years in the planning can be built there.
The application by Vista Homes (Wales) for the homes in the existing curtilage of Derllwyn House in Lamb Lane, Ponthir was before Torfaen Borough Council’s March 26 planning committee meeting and recommended for approval.
But Labour councillor Karl Gauden, who represents Llanfrechfa and Ponthir, called for the committee to visit the site.
He said residents had raised a number of objections, especially around drainage and described the village as badly affected by flooding and the end of Lamb Lane, where the site is, as very narrow which he said photographs shown to the committee didn’t illustrate.
He said: “The pictures don’t do it justice and just how narrow it is. It’s a dead end, it’s classed as urban but is essentially rural.”
Cllr Gauden also said: “I think the suggestion of a site visit has considerable merit to it as to see it is to understand it in this case.”
The councillor said while he always reads committee reports in full he starts with objections: “My first port of call in general is to the objections, where are the bodies buried? They are usually found in the objections and the sheer weight is evidence of concern with drainage, ecology and all the rest of it.”
He highlighted Welsh Water had, in 2018 when the current application was submitted, said no development should be allowed until a drainage scheme has been approved by the council and in September last year commented it hadn’t seen any new documents.
Cllr Gauden said: “Drainage is a perennial problem in that part of Ponthir and it floods down Caerleon Road. The drainage isn’t fit for purpose.”
The council’s planning consultant Richard Lewis said the developer has been in talks with Welsh Water, which he said is one of the reasons the proposal has taken so long, and the water company would need to be satisfied with the plans which will also be considered by the council while a sustainable urban drainage scheme will have to be formally approved.
Mr Lewis said that should make the flooding situation better and he also said a legal agreement, with the developer, would require the lane is widened with a footpath added and it is brought up to an adoptable standard before being handed over to the council.
He also confirmed each house will meet the council’s standard of providing three off-street parking spaces.
The committee agreed to make a site visit before deciding the application, with Reform UK councillor for Llantarnam, Alan Slade, voting against doing so. He said: “I’ve already been there, so has another councillor, I don’t see what it’s going to achieve going back there.”
A first application was submitted in 2010 before being refreshed in 2018.