Community urged to join fight against controversial Parkway housing programme

A resident who demanded the Government intervene over a contentious housing plan in Gaywood is now calling on others to continue the fight.

Councillors backed proposals for more than 200 new homes off Parkway earlier this week, despite concerns over flood risk, traffic and a lack of funding for new school places.

But the scheme is now on hold after an intervention by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), which is now set to consider whether ministers should make the final decision.

That came after resident Christine Merry wrote to its secretary of state, Michael Gove, and the Prime Minister, urging them to call in the plan.

Miss Merry, who led a protest at the site last month, warned Mr Gove that local people had "no faith" in the planning system.

She says the development represents the opposite of levelling up and believes it can still be stopped if the community works together against it.

She said: "I want people in this community to know we've got the right to say what we think.

"If everyone does that we get the spirit of levelling up from within."

Members voted 11 to five to approve the scheme, subject to the completion of legal agreements by early July, during a planning committee meeting on Monday.

But it emerged during the session at Lynn Town Hall that DLUHC had requested an assurance from the council that permission would not be formally granted until it had considered whether to call it in or not, warning that it could enforce that if necessary.

Its intervention has been welcomed by local county councillor Rob Colwell, who also spoke against the plan at Monday's meeting.

He said: "We are already discussing our next moves and the messages of thanks from constituents after the meeting show a renewed determination to stop this dangerous Tory project."

He also accused the authority of putting "profits before children" through its move to exclude more than £900,000 of contributions towards the provision of new school places from agreements associated with the development.

But reports presented to the committee at the meeting argued the project would be unviable if the contributions, which officials estimate would fund more than 60 additional school places across primary, secondary and sixth form levels, were provided.