Haydock Point East Lancashire Road and Lodge Lane Haydock St Helens WA12 0HL

Main issues, as the Inspector framed them

• the acceptability of the proposed employment development in principle, having regard to national and local adopted and emerging development plan policy and in particular the extent to which the proposed development is consistent with Government policies protecting Green Belt land
• the effects of the proposed development with respect to the appearance and character of the landscape
• the effects of the development with respect to access and the wider highway network
• other environmental effects of the development with respect to: ecology and biodiversity net gain (BNG), air quality, noise and other aspects of residential amenity, best and most versatile agricultural land (BMVAL), and heritage and archaeology
• the level of need for and available supply of employment land within St Helens Metropolitan Borough (SHMB) and the wider area and the contribution the proposed development would make to meeting that need, compared with any available alternative sites
• the extent to which the proposed development would be consistent with Government policies for building a strong, competitive economy
• whether the proposed development would give rise to socio-economic or environmental benefits to be weighed in the planning balance
• the degree to which the planning obligations put forward in the completed Section 106 Agreement would be necessary and directly fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development
• planning conditions necessary to control the effects of the development if the SoS decides to grant approval
• any considerations arising from any interrelationship between other employment proposals in St Helens or elsewhere
• in the overall planning balance, if the development is considered to be inappropriate in the Green Belt, whether any factors in its favour would amount to the requisite very special circumstances to outweigh policy harm and any other harm to justify granting permission for the development

What decided it

The cumulative benefits of the scheme were not collectively sufficient to clearly outweigh the substantial Green Belt harm and significant landscape harm, so very special circumstances did not exist.

The substantial Green Belt harm (inappropriateness, loss of openness, harm to Green Belt purposes) together with significant landscape harm, limited weight harm from loss of agricultural land and very limited weight heritage harm, were not clearly outweighed by the significant weight sub-regional employment need, significant weight economic benefits, moderate weight highway benefits, limited weight accessibility improvements and limited weight biodiversity net gain benefits.