Taxal Lodge’s future is still not certain. After planners at High Peak Borough Council turned down a building application, to convert the Lodge into 14 homes, the developers, Ruttle Contacting Ltd from Chorley in Lancashire, are making a financial appraisal of their plans. They intend to resubmit the application, and also to appeal against the earlier decision.
Taxal Lodge, on Linglongs Road, is just over 100 years old. Almost half of its life has been as a private home, the other half as a special school..
During recent years, the building has been empty, a target for vandals and at one time arsonists. The Lodge closed in 2005 as a residential school for children in care, run by Stockport education authority. At one time, between 50 and 60 boys lived at the Lodge.
The planning application sought to create 14 residential dwellings in Taxal Lodge, ranging from two to four bedrooms.
- Six would have been in the main, three storey part of the building
- four units were planned in the two storey section
- a further three in the L shaped building
- and the 14th a conversion of a detached house.
Whaley Bridge Town Council and the local amenity society, while approving of the ‘sensitive re-use’ of the hall, were concerned about extra traffic on Linglongs Road.
County highway officers came out against the application, saying the limited width of Linglongs Road was unsuitable for extra traffic.
But the clinching argument for the borough planners was that the proposal did not include any ‘affordable housing’, a key part of the council’s Local Plan.