We are holding a public exhibition on Wednesday 5th October, 3pm-8pm at Parkland Sports Club. Please do come along to learn more.
Welcome to our Public Consultation.
Your chance to shape our vision for Chapel Lane
Taylor Wimpey, a national housebuilder in the UK with a local presence, would like to welcome you to our consultation website. We are bringing forward outline plans for a sustainable extension to the north Widnes community, on land east of Chapel Lane. If approved, this will see the delivery of 350 high-quality homes, including a 20% affordable housing allocation, new green open spaces, beautiful landscaping, as well as a number of new walking and cycling routes.
As our plans continue to evolve, Taylor Wimpey is seeking views from local residents to develop a scheme that has been shaped by the community. We want to hear your local insight, what is important to you and know what else our proposals could deliver for the community.
During this public consultation, you will have the opportunity to read about our vision for the site and share your views on the plans through a variety of ways listed in the Your Views section, including visiting our public exhibition on Wednesday 5th October at Parkland Sports Club.
This is your chance to shape our proposals for an attractive new neighbourhood that has been designed with the environment in mind. Your feedback will be reviewed by the project team and, where possible, incorporated into our designs before we submit an outline planning application to Halton Council.
Background
Local Housing Need
Widnes, like much of the North West, is in need of new homes. More and more people are struggling to get their foot on the housing ladder and enjoy the security of owning their own home. According to Halton Council’s Delivery and Allocations Local Plan (2022), the Borough needs at least 8,050 new homes by 2037 to achieve its ‘Vision for Halton’ and meet local demand.
This includes the endemic need for affordable housing which has created a ‘boomerang generation’, where a growing number of young people are returning to live at home with their parents or stuck renting. Halton Council also recognises that there is a real local need for a wide range of housing types in the Borough, especially family and aspirational homes.
Taylor Wimpey’s vision for Chapel Lane wants to help address these problems by delivering the houses Halton needs in the right way.
Local Community Benefits
Our Chapel Lane plans are much more than just ‘new homes’. The proposals will deliver significant investment to the local area, with economic benefits for local businesses as new residents spend in local shops and use local services in the areas where new homes are built.
Taylor Wimpey’s plans represent new jobs and a substantial boost to the local economy during a time where local people are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
Site Allocation
To secure the future growth and prosperity of the Borough and ensure that the services, facilities, and opportunities on offer serve Halton’s population over next fifteen years, the Council has identified areas where new residential and employment land could be developed in a sustainable way. The Chapel Lane site was identified by the Council as a strategic location for a new residential development in the Delivery and Allocations Local Plan, which was approved earlier this year.
Taylor Wimpey has worked hard to design a vibrant, sustainable extension to the community in this part of Widnes, that is landscape-led with the environment in mind. We are now asking local residents to help us develop our vision by engaging with us during this public consultation.
What types of homes do you want to see? How would you like the new open spaces to be used? How can the additional investment represented by this scheme be used to improve your local area?
Our Proposals
What are we proposing?
We pride ourselves on creating communities that bring people together. Our proposals aim to deliver:
- A thriving and sustainable northern extension to the community in Widnes;
- Up to 350 high-quality and energy-efficient new homes in a range of styles and sizes to respond to the local housing need, including a 20% allocation of affordable homes;
- Sensitively-designed green infrastructure, including a central green corridor lined with trees and hedgerows, retaining all high-quality trees where possible and planting more;
- Significant open spaces, community greens and beautiful landscaping for new and existing residents to enjoy;
- Walking and cycling routes throughout the site, connecting with Chapel Lane, Sandy Lane and Queensbury Way;
- An investment of approximately £16.8m per year into the local economy during construction; and
- Creating 235 new jobs during construction and further jobs indirectly through the supply chain.
Taylor Wimpey is committed to leaving a positive and lasting legacy for the new and current residents in north Widnes. With Chapel Lane, we want to deliver a new, vibrant community that complements the character of the area, while providing high-quality and affordable family homes that respond to local needs.
Sensitively designed with the natural and built environment in mind, Taylor Wimpey is working towards a biodiversity net gain through the Chapel Lane site. New walking and cycling routes, located along green corridors throughout the site, will promote active travel and healthy living. Furthermore, several areas of open spaces have been created to ensure that attractive landscaping and greenery runs throughout the new neighbourhood, with the installation of new wildlife habitats like insect hotels and ponds, and play areas for the wider community to enjoy.
Driving the Designs
- A wide range of houses for everyone to call home
- Future living for today
- Carbon footprint conscious
- Safe, strong and well-connected
- A walkable neighbourhood
- Leaving a lasting legacy
This is our vision for Chapel Lane, but now we want to hear from you. Our aim is for the community to be at the heart of these plans and your input will be important in achieving that.
To learn more about the proposals, you can also attend our public exhibition at Parkland Sports Club on Wednesday 5th October between 3pm – 8pm, where you will be able to meet members of the development team and ask any questions you may have.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any questions about the proposals, please check below to view our frequently asked questions and answers. For all other questions, please visit Your Views for ways to submit your questions.
The site covers 14.26 hectares of land, stretching from Chapel Lane to the border of the woodlands bounded by Queensbury Way.
Taylor Wimpey’s land has been allocated in Halton Council’s adopted Local Plan as a Strategic Housing Site. It has been identified as a location for new residential development to meet the needs of the growing population in Halton.
Taylor Wimpey has a vested interest in the land within the red boundary depicted on the masterplan and is looking to develop the land for residential housing.
In the adopted Local Plan, Halton Council acknowledged that not all future development can be delivered on brownfield land. This is because much of the remaining previously developed land is highly constrained through contamination or other factors which affect development viability. This is reducing the amount of brownfield land which can realistically be brought back into beneficial use.
In order to secure the future growth and prosperity of the Borough and to ensure that the services, facilities and opportunities on offer serve Halton’s population over the lifetime of the Local Plan, the Council identified a further six sites that were not brownfield in order to meet the housing needs of local people.
The land between Chapel Lane and Queensbury Way has been identified as a site that can support the Council’s approach and in turn safeguard other green spaces in the Borough from speculative development.
Chapel Lane will offer a range of housing types, from two-bedroom first-time homes to four-bedroom family homes, to suit the needs of the local area, including a mix of affordable properties integrated throughout the site. Of the new dwellings, 20% will be affordable homes, allowing a greater number of people to purchase property in the local area.
As this is an outline proposal, the exact design of the homes is not included within the proposals at this stage. The exact mix of tenures to be delivered will be decided by Taylor Wimpey in due course based on local housing need and the Council’s response to our initial outline planning application. This will be shaped by the feedback received during this consultation. If the outline planning application is approved, Taylor Wimpey will develop a detailed ‘Reserved Matters’ planning application, which provides much more detail about the design, layout and housing types.
Taylor Wimpey has worked hard to ensure that the landscape will be protected with no net loss to local biodiversity. In preparation for our planning application, Taylor Wimpey has completed a number of ecology surveys and environment assessments so far to mitigate the impact to the ecology and wildlife.
The tree quality throughout the site ranges from moderate to high, with most being located around the border of the site, creating a natural visual barrier. Therefore, Taylor Wimpey will commit to retaining as many trees as possible, while planting new trees throughout the site.
Due to the nature and constraints of the land within Taylor Wimpey’s interest vehicular access can only be established via Chapel Lane, which has been established in our outline application, with emergency access being used at an additional point through Sandy Lane. Our Transport Assessments undertaken for this application suggest that this is access arrangement is suitable, and surveys have been undertaken to measure the capacity of the highway network.
In addition to providing 350 much needed new homes, the economic benefits include:
- Supporting and creating up to 235 jobs during the construction phase, both directly with the development and others in the local supply chain.
- Representing an estimated total investment of £16.8m per year.
- Additional local expenditure of over £4.7m per year as residents move to the area.
- Additional council tax payments, with an estimated £547,336 per year.
Taylor Wimpey is also committed to working closely with Halton Council to determine the needs of the local area, and the impact that more homes may have on services and infrastructure.
Such discussions often result in councils and developers agreeing to Section 106 contributions, when developers provide funding for necessary work to existing infrastructure or services, or sometimes funds the delivery of new schools, roads, or medical centres.
The Local Authority will establish if further financial contributions are required and make the final decision on where such funds are invested.
- Following our community consultation, Taylor Wimpey’s project team will review the feedback and the designs. Once finalised, we will submit a full planning application to Halton Borough Council. Below is an overview of the projected timeline for the project: September 2022: First public consultation
- October 2022: Reviewing feedback and finalising the designs
- October 2022: Planning application submission to Halton Council
- Early2023: Determination of the planning application
- Late 2023: Submit Reserved Matters planning applications
- Mid 2024: Determination of the Reserved Matters planning application
- Early 2025: Construction begins
- Late 2025: First homes are ready to be occupied
About Us
Taylor Wimpey is a national housebuilder in the UK with a local presence. We are one of the UK’s largest residential developers and are committed to working with local people and communities. In 2007 George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow merged to form Taylor Wimpey. We are proud of the home building and construction heritage of both companies, which dates back more than 100 years.
At Taylor Wimpey, we know how important your new home is. When we’re building your home, we never forget we’re building your future. And we take this responsibility very seriously. We build and sell over 14,000 homes each year and make a positive contribution to the communities in which we work by developing infrastructure and making financial contributions to local authorities.
Working with others benefits us all and is at the heart of a successful and sustainable development. We aim to be the land buyer and residential developer that everyone wants to deal with.
We work hard to create places that bring people together and that are easy to live in, we build a wide range of high quality new homes, we consider how you’ll access local amenities and facilities like green spaces, shops and schools, whether they’re part of the new or existing community, and we invest in the areas we work in to both fund improvements and build new facilities.
You can find out more about the work we do and our specialisms on our website.
Your Views
Our public consultation runs from Wednesday 28 September until Monday 17 October.
During this time, you can leave your comments by completing our form below, or you can get in touch with us if you have a question by:
Thank you for taking the time to give your feedback on Taylor Wimpey’s proposals for land off Chapel Lane. The consultation period has now finished and all the feedback will be considered by members of the project team.
You can still get in touch with the team if you have any questions using the contact details below.
- Speaking with a member of the team by calling: 0333 358 0502 (Monday to Friday – 9.00am to 5.30pm)
- Emailing us with your comments, questions or feedback at: chapellaneconsultation@havingyoursay.co.uk
All feedback received will be logged and reviewed to help shape the final plans for the development before our application is submitted to Halton Borough Council later this year. All comments received by Monday 17 October will be taken into consideration.