Plans for the redevelopment of a former ice cream depot, currently being used by a skip hire company, have gone into meltdown after a planning appeal was rejected for the third time.
Residents of Glencoe Rd in Bushey, Herts, are now trying to encourage developers and the council to work together and come up with a solution to what has been described as “a rat infested monstrosity”.
Limebrook Investment Company, the owners of the site, decided to lease the plot to an industrial skip hire company while awaiting permission to build eight cottages.
With no permission having yet been granted, and no clear solution around the corner, residents are now worried that the interim use of the site by heavy skip lorries will continue indefinitely.
Glencoe Road resident, Graham Boyle, said: “Yesterday a car blocked off the top of the road and the lorries could not get in which could have caused a problem if something like a fire engine wanted to get through.
The lorries are large and it is a narrow road so the implications are it could cause a lot of problems. I thought the developers were just using the skips in order to scare the council.”
An anonymous resident said she understood the developer’s decision to lease the land, but was keen to see the housing development go ahead. She commented: “The developer has to make money somehow but I do wish they would get on with it with the council and get something done.
You've got rats running about in there, it's got an asbestos roof, it's a monstrosity. Everybody wants a residential development.”
Sasha Gilbert, speaking for the developers, said that a revised application would be submitted to the council, but could not put any timing on when that would happen.
