Will Wirral Council receive £300,000 windfall for greenbelt Saughall Massie Fire Station site if planning application APP/17/00306 is approved?

                                            

In a 20 page planning report on a revised planning application for a fire station in Saughall Massie, councillors on the Planning Committee have been recommended to approve the application.

The report fails to mention that Wirral Council owns the land, and following a First-tier Tribunal case between myself and the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, it was revealed that Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority had set aside £300,000* to pay Wirral Council for the land as part of the project. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority also predict they will receive £200,000* from the sale of West Kirby Fire Station and £350,000* from the sale of Upton Fire Station.

*estimates of sale prices for Upton Fire Station, West Kirby Fire Station and the land at Saughall Massie owned by Wirral Council were made by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority based on prices in October 2014 (Upton Fire Station and West Kirby Fire Station), see Appendix H to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority report CFO/101/14) and January 2015 (Upton Fire Station, West Kirby Fire Station and land at Saughall Massie, see Appendix F to Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority report CFO/003/15).

A previous application for a fire station was refused by Wirral Council’s Planning Committee on a 7:6 vote last year. An appeal of this planning application refusal to the Planning Inspectorate was considered but abandoned.

Wirral Council’s Planning Committee meets next week on Thursday 22nd June 2017, starting at 6.00 pm to consider the revised planning application in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe. It is expected that a site visit will be requested at this meeting which if agreed will delay a final decision on the planning application to a later meeting of the Planning Committee (expected to be on the 20th July 2017).

As the planning report states, the petition of objection to the planning application has grown to 4,034 signatures and there have been 324 objections to the new application at the time the report was written.

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