A residential road in Workington would become a rat run if two key sites in the town were developed for housing, a town councillor has warned.

The sites of the former Southfield Technology College and leisure centre in Moorclose have both been allocated for possible housing development in the draft Allerdale Local Plan.

Sites in Harrington have also been included.

If they remain in the finalised plan, it would make it easier for developers to secure planning permission for the sites.

But town councillor Peter McHarry warned that Ashfield Road would become a rat run if the plans went ahead, with motorists vying to reach the A596 opposite the Travellers Rest pub.

He said: “You’re going to end up with a road that goes from Salterbeck through Moorclose and out to the Travellers Rest.

“There doesn’t seem to have been any consideration of infrastructure at all when we talk about housing. They just find a space the houses will fit in. Slowly but surely things start to clog up.”

Concerns were also raised about the ability of local schools to cope with the proposed extra housing, while Coun Mike Rollo said car parking did not seem to have been properly considered when proposals for employment sites had been drawn up, with the town’s Central Station car park suggested as a possible site for retail development.

Councillors raised concern that planning rules only allowed sites to be considered in isolation, not for the impacts to be considered cumulatively along with those of other possible developments.

Coun Mike Heaslip said: “If we did planning properly like they do in sensible countries you’d ask your planning developers where’s the best place to develop in the next 20 years. You’d do it as one grand master plan.

“We’re market led in this country. Nobody looks at the big picture like where do you put the car park if you build on Central Station car park?”

The town council’s planning committee agreed to gather comments from all town councillors ahead of a council response to Allerdale council’s ongoing consultation being agreed on March 21.

A public consultation on the plans runs until March 24 and allows people to say which sites they think should be developed and which safeguarded.

Consultation documents are available at www.allerdale. gov.uk/siteallocations and at libraries in Aspatria, Cockermouth, Maryport, Silloth, Wigton and Workington, and Allerdale council offices across the borough.