JRF eco-home plan put on ice

12:26pm Friday 16th May 2008

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PLANS to build a three-storey eco-friendly home of the kind that is intended to be built in a massive housing development on the eastern outskirts of York have been withdrawn.

The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT) has pulled the plug on plans to put up the home, which was intended to act as a prototype for the units proposed on the Derwenthorpe site, in Osbaldwick, where JRHT is to build a 540-home model village.

The home would have been built on land lying between Chestnut Grove and Hawthorn Terrace South, in New Earswick, York.

JRHT, which has also applied to build two detached homes on land lying to the west of Acacia Avenue, also in New Earswick, said it was expecting to submit revised proposals for that application.

It said it would propose to build one two-storey home there, instead of two dwellings, and that the design of the property would be determined by the trust in consultation with local residents and City of York Council planners. Under the original proposals, the two dwellings had also been intended to act as a prototype for the units proposed on the Derwenthorpe site.

JRHT said it was not yet clear whether the proposed dwelling would be intended to act as a prototype for the homes that are intended to be built on the Derwenthorpe site.

In a statement that was part of the original applications, Richards Partington Architects said that, in terms of environmental sustainability, the homes were underpinned by three key principles: maximising the amount of energy a house can get from its external environment, high levels of thermal insulation, and good levels of air-tightness with controlled ventilation.

Nigel Ingram, director of development and property services at JRHT, said: "Following extensive discussions with local residents and planners, we have withdrawn our planning application for a home on Ivy Place.

"We will also be informally consulting with local residents and planners on the revised proposals for land west of Acacia Avenue, prior to any formal changes to the current planning application.

"We have a long waiting-list of people wanting family homes in New Earswick, and we look forward to receiving feedback on the revised proposals, which will help us continue to meet that need."

The news comes after we reported earlier this month how local residents objected to both planning applications.

Lindsey Houston, of Ivy Place, said earlier this month about the Chestnut Grove application: "The house doesn't really relate to the existing two-storey terraced cottage style of the surrounding housing."