Defence Online

A total of 505 homes, provision for a primary school, village hall, shop, football pitch and village green area, plus a number of bat and bird boxes, all feature as part of the finalised Persimmon Homes housing scheme at Penrith’s Carleton Heights, which was given the seal of approval at Eden Council’s planning committee meeting on Thursday.The scheme has an affordable housing quota of 30 per cent., which will be scattered throughout the site, but Mr. Hutchinson said an exciting new element could include the provision of “bungalows for older people”, of which there was a lack in Penrith.Rachael Graham, representing Persimmon Homes, said the 505-home scheme was a significant development for Cumbria, not just Penrith. There is to be a wide range of housing options on offer, including three to four-storey apartment blocks, a mix of two and three-bedroomed terraced properties and up to five-bedroomed detached houses.It is expected, however, that the bungalows referred to by Mr. Hutchinson will have to form part of a further planning application.A management company formed by Persimmon Homes will oversee the running and upkeep of the proposed village hall, if either Eden or Penrith Town Council do not want to adopt it. Everyone purchasing a new house on the site will have to pay into the management company fees pot.Councillors were told there would also be a park area with a landscaped lagoon, which children could play in when it was not full of water. The lagoon-shaped basin, part of the site’s water attenuation system, had been designed to fill up only following heavy rain and then discharge over a couple of days, the meeting was told.John Lynch (Con, Penrith) wanted to know who Persimmon Homes was going to market the new houses to. He was told that, generally, the majority of sales were within 10 miles of any particular site.