Kendal Parks 160 homes approved with two votes in favour

Up to 160 homes east of Hayclose Road at Kendal Parks have been approved in principle. Only two of the five councillors at the meeting voted for them.

Westmorland and Furness Council’s Strategic Planning Committee took the application on 17 September. Its draft minutes, now published, record the vote as 2 for, 0 against and 3 abstentions. Three of the committee’s eight members had sent apologies.

The minutes also record why the approval was so lukewarm. Councillors said openly that they doubted 160 homes could be fitted onto the site with a workable access. They approved it because the land is allocated for housing, and the council’s lawyer told them a refusal would be difficult to defend.

What was approved

The application is SL/2022/0490. It is an outline permission with all matters reserved, so the layout, the design and even the access roads still need a further application.

• Up to 160 homes on 7.7 hectares of grazing land and the Kendal Golf Driving Range, next to Oxenholme station.
• 35% affordable housing on site. The applicant’s agent told the committee that means up to 56 affordable homes.
• £96,000 towards transport and pedestrian crossing improvements at the A65 Burton Road, Oxenholme Road and Heron Hill junction.
• £160,000 towards the cycle route between Oxenholme station and Kendal town centre.

The two sums are from the officer report we covered before the meeting. None of it is final until a section 106 agreement is signed. The council does not issue the permission until then.

The developer then has three years to submit the reserved matters.

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Why councillors approved something they doubted

The minutes are unusually frank. They summarise what each councillor said rather than quoting them word for word.

• Cllr H Carrick asked what would happen if the committee approved 160 homes and the access then proved undeliverable. She also asked what would happen if 35% affordable housing proved undeliverable.
• Cllr L Baker said she agreed it was unlikely that 160 houses could be built on the site with access. But because the site is allocated for housing, she felt refusal would be difficult.
• Cllr R Audland said Oxenholme station was already dangerous at busy times, and that more development would make an already dire parking situation worse. He also raised bins: with up to five per home, the site could need room for up to 800.

Members discussed refusing for lack of information. The council’s Senior Lawyer advised against it. The council had a month after the application arrived to ask for more detail, the minutes record, and the scheme complied with the development plan and national policy. He also told members that if the access question could not be solved, the reserved matters would not be granted.

Cllr Carrick said she was concerned the scheme was not viable. She moved the recommendation anyway, saying members had to decide on planning law. It passed with two votes.

The two things still unresolved

The access next to Oxenholme station. The indicative main access is off Oxenholme Road. Kendal Town Council told the committee that the junction is already “chaotic, dangerous and constrained”. It wants that entrance kept for emergency vehicles, cyclists and walkers only. Residents who spoke said that without it, the site has no second access and cannot go ahead. Officers said access is a reserved matter and is not settled by this decision. The council’s Senior Development Manager said that if the access turns out undeliverable, the developer would have to come back with a new application.

The affordable housing. The requirement is still 35%. But the planning officer accepted it “may change going forward” if the developer makes a viability case, and the Senior Development Manager said there was a risk to the numbers because viability was not yet known. Residents argued that the extra cost of the access and the ground could later be used to cut the affordable share. The town council asked for 35% to be protected from any later viability test. Nothing in the decision does that.

Two United Utilities trunk water mains run beneath the site. The agent said it may be possible to put a road over the pipe. The planning officer said United Utilities had asked for conditions, to be dealt with at reserved matters.

What changed at the meeting

The officer added the condition changes from the addendum report, and the committee approved them:

• any access application must come with a full Transport Assessment, with junction capacity analysis for the Oxenholme Road access based on a fresh traffic survey
• a Biodiversity Gain Plan must be approved before work starts
• a plan for bat boxes, bird boxes and bee bricks on the houses must be approved before above-ground work

The officer also corrected one claim made in the objections. The site is not owned by Cllr Doug Rathbone, she told the committee. Cllr Rathbone spoke at the meeting on behalf of Kendal Town Council, which asked for refusal.

Eleven late representations had come in, all objections. Four residents spoke against the scheme and the agent, McDonald Wilkinson Tonge, spoke for it. The agent said there had been substantial developer interest, which would not progress until outline permission was granted.

What it means for you

• If you live on Kendal Parks or Hayclose Crescent: nothing is built yet, and the layout, heights and access are all still to come. Each of those is a separate application with its own consultation. That is where comments on overlooking, the field edge and the access will count.
• If you are hoping for an affordable home: the 35% is a starting position, not a guarantee, until the section 106 is signed and the reserved matters are approved.
• If you use Oxenholme station: the junction design is not decided. Watch for the access application, which must now include a full Transport Assessment.

Source: draft minutes of the Strategic Planning Committee, 17 September 2026, minute 16, and the meeting papers. Search the council’s planning register for the application under SL/2022/0490. For other schemes, see our Kendal planning news.