RESIDENTS are up in arms over affordable housing plans which they say will cause traffic chaos in their street.

Strategic Team Group and Adactus Housing is seeking planning approval for 16 houses, two bungalows and 21 apartments on land off Peter Street in Northwich.

Residents in Peter Street say their no-through road will become a through road to the proposed new estate under plans submitted to Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Numerous residents have written to the council to voice their opposition to the scheme, including Karen Granville.

“I have lived on Peter Street for 26 years, and it is a quiet, safe no through road,” she said.

“This scheme would destroy that, and the proposal to use a street with such heavy on-street parking as a through route to a housing development is preposterous.

“Residents have only on-street parking, which is incapable of catering for all the cars, and for much of the time two cars cannot pass each other.”

She said drivers would often reverse back onto the unmade turning circle at the end of the road to allow the other vehicle to pass, and the site earmarked for the housing could be re-established as a “vital urban green space.”

“To lose this opportunity to simply build houses would be a scandal,” she said.

Fellow Peter Street resident Joseph Wilson said: “Residents’ cars are normally lined up all the way along both sides of the street, leaving the right of way priority a guessing game at best.

“This results in one car having to reverse the length of the street to give way or turn.

“A lot of the residents have young children, who often play on the street, and I fear that with lorries and dumper trucks adding to the already densely-occupied street it is an accident waiting to happen.”

Karl Sheridan said the extra traffic from the new housing would lead to “serious traffic jams and frayed tempers,” cars would no longer be able to turn on the land at the far end of the road and is asking the council to reject “this nonsensical proposal.”

Deborah Jones said: “This street works as a one-way with all the parked cars on it. It will never cope with all the extra traffic that will come with the extra housing.”

The applicants said residents of Peter Street, along with the new residents, would benefit from off-street visitor spaces and a formal turning head.