A decision could soon be made on hundreds of homes that would “double the size” of a Nottinghamshire village.
Developer Bloor Homes’ outline plans for 420 houses in fields next to the Toton Sidings rail yard, just off Stapleford Lane, have been in the pipeline since May 2024.
The homes, known as the Toton West development, form part of a wider development masterplan under which 4,500 homes are expected to be built across Toton, Chilwell and Chetwynd by 2040.
On a more local level, the scheme is one of three Toton-specific sites, including the Toton East development, a 260-home scheme put forward south of the tram stop.
A new link road is planned under the submitted Toton North development, which includes up to 880 homes north of the tram stop.
However, it is intended that the new road will serve all three sites.
Councillor Teresa Cullen (Broxtowe Alliance), who represents the area on Broxtowe Borough Council, said the wider housing plans will “double the size of Toton”.
The 420 Toton West homes are the “first phase” of this wider housing allocation in the area, but there has been a delay in the scheme getting formal approval from the Borough Council, meaning the developer launched an appeal.
Broxtowe Borough Council’s delay was due to Nottinghamshire County Council’s highways team and National Highways, which is in charge of the roads, believing a deeper assessment of the impacts on local roads is needed before permission is granted for any of the sites.
But on Thursday (1 July), the authority’s planning committee was asked to confirm its position at the appeal, essentially asking the committee what decision it recommends that the Government’s Planning Inspectorate make.
The committee ultimately recommended approval to the inspectorate, with a vote of eight to four, but this came after a lengthy discussion over concerns about potential future “gridlock” on the nearby roads and the fact that the three Toton developments are being treated separately despite affecting each other.
One resident, named David, objected to the appeal recommendation, saying at the meeting: “Common sense dictates that vehicles from circa 4,500 new homes in total planned for the strategic site will lead to gridlock – you don’t need a transport assessment to tell you that.
“The [shift in transport use] suggested in the various transport assessments is not realistic – people will not abandon their cars any time soon.”
James Hicks, a chartered town planner representing Bloor, told the committee that, within the last two weeks, the developer had received “preliminary” outcomes of a wider roads assessment.
This said the proposed new link road for the wider development “will deliver the anticipated highways improvements” and “facilitate” the new homes in the village.
He said: “The model shows Bardills roundabout will operate better than it does now once the road is constructed.”
Speaking at the meeting on behalf of her residents, Cllr Cullen called for all three Toton development sites to be determined “at the same time” to give more assurance on how all the new traffic will join up and flow.
She said: “We’ve heard tonight it might only be a couple of weeks before we know about the highways [concerns] being resolved, and it might be a matter of months before the next application comes forward.
“It’s very unsettling and very difficult to see one [housing] application come forward that might affect the others.”
Cllr David K Watts (Lib Dem) said he was “deeply unhappy” that Bloor had chosen to treat the three Toton sites separately.
He said: “Splitting it into three sets of separate applications and trying to force us to look at one on its own, I can’t see any legitimate reason for that.
“I came down Coventry Lane onto Ilkeston Road today [Thursday] at half past eight [in the morning], and it took ten minutes to do the first mile. I then went onto the A52 to Bardills Island, where there was another delay.
“To salami-slice the applications as they’ve chosen to do doesn’t enable us to look at the scheme holistically.”
Development on the land had been considered as early as 2014 under the council’s plan before being formally allocated as a proposed development site in October 2019.
It was known in the plans as “land in the vicinity of the HS2 Station at Toton (Strategic Location for Growth)” and was set to be designed with the railway in mind. Then, under Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, the Toton hub was scrapped in favour of HS2 trains running to an existing, but expanded, station at East Midlands Parkway.
The entire East Midlands leg of the line was later scrapped under Rishi Sunak’s government in 2023.
By Lauren Monaghan, Local Democracy Reporter