Work has started at Ballaglonney Farm in Crosby for an estate of at least 21 houses.

Planning permission for 21 homes and a retail unit with car parking on Peel Road, submitted in 2016, reached a ’decision split at appeal’ in March this year.

Approval for the 21 homes shown in the application (16/01314/REM) was given, while the proposed retail unit was rejected.

Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture, Geoffrey Boot MHK, said the application made ’no provision for office development’ and that the ’proposed introduction of a primary office use would constitute a material change in the approved use of the proposed retail building which would necessitate, of itself, consideration against a different policy background than that which it applies to retail development’.

Application

Since then, JM Project Management Limited submitted another application for the site in 2017 (17/00852/B) for 28 houses along with a shop and office, in fields opposite Eyreton Terrace, near to the Millennium Hall and cricket ground in the village.

The proposal shows the development being built on fields west of the bowling club with a lane leading to the new houses from the main road.

Included in the plans is a shop with office space on the first floor and 33 car parking spaces.

The proposal shows a new bus layby on the west-bound side of the road and a ’puffin’ crossing.

The 2017 application is ’pending decision’, despite the fact that it has exceeded the eight weeks in which a response is needed.

The latest proposals for the site were submitted in March.

They are both reserved matters applications for a retail unit and parking (18/00329/REM and 18/00339/REM).

Both of those applications are also pending a decision.