Source: Liverpool_Echo
Everton FC secures permission to build luxury homes on Bellefield training ground
EVERTON FC finally secured permission to build 74 new luxury homes at its former Bellefield training ground - despite an earlier approval being overturned.[LNB]Permission had originally been granted earlier this month, but a High Court ruling that the government had acted unlawfully by scrapping a regional planning strategy that could have prevented the approval meant it had to go back before the council.[LNB]The strategy urged authorities to ensure any housing development took place in the housing market renewal areas.[LNB]Bellefield, in West Derby, is outside of the renewal area, but when the permission was originally given the strategy had been shelved so planners said there was no longer a reason to refuse it the go-ahead.[LNB] Yesterdaydespite arguing at the earlier meeting that the scrapping of the regional spatial strategy meant the council no longer had grounds to refuse the application, city planners dismissed the strategy and the council's "supplementary planning document" - which also only urges development in housing market renewal areas - as being of "declining relevance".
