40 ‘affordable’ homes to be built close to industrial site

Jun 25 2009 by Alastair McNeill, Hamilton Advertiser

PLANS for 40 ‘affordable’ housing association flats on an Uddingston industrial site were this week given the green light.

The Hornal Road scheme, submitted by applicants Lynett Leisure and Clyde Valley Housing Association, was approved on Tuesday by South Lanarkshire’s planning committee.

Bordered by an industrial estate and housing, the project comprises two four-storey blocks of flats with access from Hornal Road.

“The Local Plan has identified a need for affordable housing in the Hamilton Housing Market Area,” said South Lanarkshire executive director (enterprise resources) Iain Urquhart in a document put before the committee.

“The site falls within that HMA and Bothwell/Uddingston is identified as an area with a particularly acute need.

“In order to meet some of this need every site of 20 units or more identified within the Hamilton HMA must give 25 per cent of its capacity to affordable housing.

“This proposal is for 40 flatted dwellings which are all classified as affordable houses.

“Given the site’s proximity to services and good access to the road network it is considered to be an ideal site for this type of development.”

The authority’s planning and building standards had pointed out that the scheme would have little impact on the quantity of industrial land supply.

Mr Urquhart explained: “There is currently a 13.3-year land supply available and Development Plan policy requires a minimum 10-year supply to be maintained.

“In terms of the range of land supply the application site at 0.7 hectares is fairly small and there are other similarly sized sites available in the Uddingston area.

“(As for) the quality of the industrial land supply, analysis carried out for the annual structure plan monitoring process indicates that the marketable sites in Bothwell do not meet the criteria for inclusion in the quality marketable supply.

“It is considered that the release of this particular site could be justified in terms of (development) policy, non-conforming uses in industrial areas.”