Kendal Parks 160 homes: officers say yes, town council no

Update, 22 September 2026. The Strategic Planning Committee took the Kendal Parks 160 homes application on 17 September as planned. Five days later the council has published no decision. Its planning register still records SL/2022/0490 as “Committee Meeting” with the decision “Pending” and the decision date “N/A”, no decision notice has been added to the file, and the minutes of the meeting are not yet on the council’s committee pages. We checked all three again on 22 September. We will report the outcome from the council’s own record when it appears rather than from anyone’s account of the room.

Two things were added to the file before the meeting, in an addendum report published after this article first went up.

• Eleven further representations came in, all of them objections, on top of the 88 already counted. The council’s summary of them runs to two pages.
• Officers rewrote three conditions. Condition 8 now requires any reserved matters application for access to come with a full Transport Assessment, including junction capacity analysis for the Oxenholme Road access based on an up to date traffic survey. A new condition 45 requires a Biodiversity Gain Plan to be approved before any development starts, and another requires a plan for bat boxes, bird boxes and bee bricks on the houses before any above-ground work.

One objection in the addendum is worth singling out, because the council’s reply does not address it. Objectors say two United Utilities trunk water mains run beneath the site, that United Utilities prohibits development within the pipeline area, and that this “may make the access road into the site from Oxenholme Road physically undeliverable”. The addendum lists the point and then answers three other objections instead. Access is a reserved matter here, so it is not settled by this application either way.

Up to 160 homes on grazing land and a golf driving range east of Hayclose Road went before councillors on Thursday 17 September, with council officers recommending that permission be granted.

Kendal Town Council has twice recommended refusal. Of the 88 representations from neighbours, 78 objected. The application goes to the Strategic Planning Committee for exactly that reason. Under the council’s constitution, officers cannot settle a scheme of more than 100 homes on their own when their recommendation runs against the town council’s.

The application is SL/2022/0490, and the reference gives away how long this has taken. It has been with the council since 2022, and the first consultation replies in the report are dated May and June of that year. The full officer report is published with the agenda for the meeting, which starts at 10am in the District Council Chamber at Kendal Town Hall.

What is actually being applied for

This is an outline application with all matters reserved. That means access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale are all still to come, in a later application. What the committee is being asked to settle is the principle: housing here, at this scale, with accesses in roughly these places.

• The site is 7.7 hectares, adjacent to Oxenholme station and about 2km from Kendal town centre.
• Most of it is grazing land. Part of it is the Kendal Golf Driving Range.
• Most of it is already allocated for housing, as the Kendal Parks allocation in the South Lakeland Land Allocations plan (the report cites policies “LA1.3/2.4”). The scheme spills slightly beyond the allocation boundary.
• The indicative main access is from Oxenholme Road, with an emergency access off Hayclose Crescent and possible links to Hawthorn Way and Kendal Parks Road.
• At 160 homes over 7.7 hectares the density is just over 21 dwellings a hectare, or about 29 a hectare once roads, drainage and open space are taken out.

What the developer would pay for

The recommendation is approval subject to a section 106 agreement covering three things:

• 35% affordable housing on site, which is the policy requirement for Kendal.
• £96,000 towards transport improvements and pedestrian crossing facilities at the A65 Burton Road, Oxenholme Road and Heron Hill junction.
• £160,000 towards the cycle improvement between Oxenholme station and Kendal town centre in the council’s walking and cycling plan.

That is £256,000 in cash contributions. Two other asks did not make the list.

The NHS asked for £80,341 towards extending the James Cochrane Practice at Helme Chase surgery, on the basis that 160 homes at 2.4 people each means about 384 new patients and that the practice is 0.7 miles away. That money is not in the section 106. The integrated care board told the council it would pursue it through the old South Lakeland community infrastructure levy policy instead.

No education contribution is being sought, and the reason is worth reading twice. The council’s education team calculated the yield at 32 primary pupils and 23 secondary pupils. There is room in the Heron Hill and St Mark’s primary catchment. But there are no places available at Kirkbie Kendal, the catchment secondary school, so the team’s answer is that the next school within the three mile threshold, the Queen Katherine Academy, can accommodate them. On that basis no money is required.

The objection that has not been withdrawn

Sport England still objects. The driving range would be lost, and it says no robust, up to date assessment has shown the facility to be surplus, and no replacement has been offered. Its formula puts the new population’s demand for built sports facilities at £143,637.

Officers recommend approval anyway, and set out why:

• Sport England was consulted as a courtesy, not a statutory requirement. A driving range is not a “playing field” under the 2015 development management procedure order, which defines that by a list of pitch sports.
• The development brief for the allocated land already assumed a second vehicle access driven through the driving range.
• The applicant says there is alternative driving range provision in Kendal at Carus Green, which has had substantial investment.

The flood authority’s objection has gone the other way. It withdrew its first reason for objecting after updated surface water mapping showed a lower risk across the site, and now asks for conditions on ground investigation, drainage design and opening up a culverted watercourse.

On wildlife, the scheme predates mandatory biodiversity net gain, so the statutory condition does not apply to it. The applicant has submitted the accounting anyway, and it shows a gain of 2.98 habitat units, or 18.22%, which the council rates a significant on-site gain and wants tied to a 30-year management plan.

What the town council and neighbours said

Kendal Town Council recommended refusal in June 2022 and again in November 2023. Its points included:

• the proposed mini roundabout at the Oxenholme Road entrance sits on a blind bend, and the access there should be for emergency vehicles, walkers and cyclists only
• pressure on school, doctor and dentist capacity
• existing parking problems on Hayclose Road and Howe Bank
• a green corridor between the new houses and Howe Bank Close
• about 20 fewer houses, with more green space and a play area
• flooding potential at the stream near the south west corner
• electric vehicle charging as standard

Neighbours’ objections ran along similar lines:

• traffic and parking, and the access next to the station
• construction traffic through the existing estates to the north
• drainage and sewer capacity
• the loss of grazing land
• overlooking from houses on higher ground
• a fear that Kendal and Oxenholme are merging into one another

One objector asked for 160 swift nest bricks to be made a condition, one for each home.

Officers’ answer is short. The principle was settled when the land was allocated. The council cannot currently demonstrate a five-year housing supply. And most of the detail people are objecting to is a reserved matter that comes back for approval later.

What it means for you

• If you want to speak at the meeting, the agenda says anyone wishing to make representations must apply no later than 0:01am three working days before the meeting, with a written summary of the points they intend to raise, to the officer named on the front of the agenda. Counting back from a Thursday meeting, that falls at the very start of the week, so contact the committee officer now rather than later.
• If you live on Hayclose Road, Howe Bank Close, Hawthorn Way or Kendal Parks Road, the access question is the one to follow. Where the traffic comes in and out is still not fixed, and highways officers want a secondary vehicular connection confirmed.
• If you are waiting for an affordable home in Kendal, 35% of up to 160 is up to 56 homes, but the mix and tenure are not decided until the reserved matters stage.
• If nothing is decided on Thursday, that is not unusual. The committee can defer, refuse against the recommendation, or approve subject to the legal agreement being completed, which itself can take months.

We will report the decision. More on how Kendal is being built and priced: Kendal planning news, house prices and trains from Oxenholme.