Plans for 300 new homes and relocation of football club
Landowner Michael Gurney on the proposed site in 2017. Picture: Ally McGilvray - Credit: Ally McGilvray
Ambitious plans to build up to 300 homes, including 75 affordable, and relocate Cromer Town Football Club have moved a step closer.
Landowner Michael Gurney has lodged an application for outline planning permission for the development on a nearly 20-hectare site, which is currently used for arable farming, at Pine Tree Farm in Norwich Road. The proposals include a new roundabout and access onto A149 and associated infrastructure.
The hybrid application also includes full planning permission to relocate Cromer Town FC, which has been based at Cabbell Park since 1922.
The plans comprise six new football pitches, two of which are full-sized, with one being compliant with competition-size requirements.
The proposal also includes associated fencing and floodlighting, a new clubhouse, changing facilities, a new access road and car park. The new development would also accommodate Cromer Youth Football Club.
Mr Gurney said: 'We were asked in 2017 by North Norfolk District Council (NNDC) to put in an application, as this site had been selected for potential growth. We consulted and talked to Cromer town and Northrepps parish councils, and I took details personally to all local houses.
'We have since addressed some of the transport concerns raised, to slow traffic down, including a new pedestrian crossing, and moved the site away from the Burnt Hills estate.'
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Jenna Bedwell, chairman of Cromer Town FC, said: 'We desperately need a new ground, but the main need is for a football pitch for the club's youth and children's teams, who have never had a ground.
'For their home games, as they cannot play in Cromer without a pitch, they have to go as far away as Gresham and Bodham.
'There is a huge need for new housing in Cromer, but I'm worried whether we have the doctors and schools to support it.'
The Anglian Combination Division Two side has previously been given a guarantee from NNDC that it can stay at Cabbell Park until a new home is found.
Rival plans for the homes and the relocation of the club have also been submitted, but for land off Roughton Road, and both should come before the council's planning committee later this year.