UNCERTAINTY surrounds the route of a planned highway to support the controversial garden suburb development in Warrington South.

A reserved matters application for 370 homes at Appleton Cross was approved by the development management committee at its recent meeting.

Committee member Cllr Peter Walker highlighted the proposed garden suburb strategic link road and asked whether it would impact on the scheme.

The council’s highways team confirmed the intention is to create a ’40-metre wide corridor’ but said there is currently no design in place.

An officer told members he ‘can’t say at this stage’ whether the intention is to implement a dual carriageway as part of the link road, while insisting ‘we are not building houses that would need to be knocked down’ in the future.

A council spokesman confirmed the Appleton Cross development is required to leave a 40-metre corridor undeveloped to allow the option to deliver infrastructure in the future to support the garden suburb.

He said: “The design and alignment of this infrastructure is not currently known, with a number of illustrative options set out in the supporting documents to the draft local plan submission version.

“It is expected that this corridor would be sufficiently wide to allow highway, public transport, walking and cycling facilities to be implemented alongside appropriate landscaping or mitigation measures.

“Dual carriageway sections, if required, will be limited to where they are needed – such as closer to motorway junctions – not a blanket approach.”

Residents have also been informed that heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) could be restricted from accessing parts of the garden suburb.

The spokesman added: “Other existing local roads around the garden suburb, such as through Appleton Thorn, are not envisaged to be upgraded to accommodate additional traffic and, where necessary, measures would be implemented to prevent significant increases in traffic and specifically HGVs.

“Such measures would be intended to retain or enhance existing residents’ quality or life, considering potential negative impacts of additional HGV traffic such as noise, vibration, safety and environmental impacts.

“This approach is not specific to the garden suburb and environmental HGV restrictions are one of the tools available to the highway authority to manage traffic onto appropriate routes.

“The reference to the garden suburb has been specifically made in response to concerns raised during recent public consultations.”