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A councillor has warned the roads surrounding the site of a proposed housing estate in rural Preston, which could get the green light this week, would struggle to handle the additional
traffic it would generate. The decision on a proposal to construct up to 95 homes on the former Swainson House Farm in Goosnargh is set to be made by Preston City Council's planning
committee on Thursday. Despite the blueprint being recommended for approval by the council's planning officers, Anthony Eccles, a member of Whittingham Parish Council, has implored the
committee to take into account all the other development already underway in the area. Currently, forty homes are being built on another section of the ex-farm, off Goosnargh Lane, with an
additional 26 on the opposite side of the road. Nearby, a total of 900 dwellings will eventually occupy the former Whittingham Hospital site. Before Thursday's meeting, committee
members will visit the location, having postponed a decision on the farm development last month so they could see the plot firsthand. Lancashire County Council highways officials have not
objected to the proposal, stating it would not have "a severe impact" on the local road network. However, Cllr Eccles has criticised this assessment as being born out of a
"conspiracy of optimism", adding: "A lot of the traffic would turn right and go down Goosnargh Lane onto Langley Lane – a frightening road. "And if you look at the
[proposed] houses, they are going to be three or four bedrooms – so they'll mostly be two-car households. "[Say it generates] 150 cars – I just don't think the village can
cope with it. I don't understand why the highways department [are so] passive about this," Cllr Eccles added. A report set to be presented to committee members will inform them
that the estate would help contribute to the city council's new housing targets at a time when the authority is unable to meet a government requirement to show that it has a five-year
supply of land available to meet its new-build needs. Previous plans to develop the part of Swainson House Farm that are now once again under consideration were refused by Preston City
Council in 2020 – when the vision was for 87 properties. That decision was upheld on appeal to a planning inspector two years later. The council also rejected the 40-dwelling development
proposed elsewhere on the former farm plot, but the same planning inspector allowed the appeal in that case – concluding that it would improve the approach to the village by replacing
unsightly and redundant agricultural buildings.