A decision on a housing scheme in Narberth, which raised fears a local nursery could be forced to close due to an increase in traffic, has been put on hold while planners await updated guidance on a potential impact on water quality.

In an application recommended for approval at the July meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council’s planning committee, having been deferred from the June meeting pending a site visit, Sarah Voaden sought permission to build three houses at Llwynon, 61 St James Street, Narberth, in the town’s conservation area.

It includes an affordable housing contribution in the form of a financial sum of £38,156.25.

The site, just outside the town centre, is accessible from a private lane off Tabernacle Lane, located approximately 20m south-east of the Tabernacle Lane/St James Street Junction.

Narberth Town Council has objected to the scheme on the grounds including insufficient access and highway safety, capacity to accommodate additional foul waste, the development being out of character, and an overdevelopment.

16 members of the public have also raised concerns, including parking and access, the suitability of the lane to accommodate the traffic associated with the additional residential properties, but no concern was raised by highways.

Speaking at the June meeting, agent Andrew Vaughan-Harries of Hayston Planning and Development ltd described the application as a “win-win-win” one which would use vacant land in a poor condition, enhancing the area.

Objecting to the scheme at that meeting, Hayley Bowlett of Noah’s Ark Child Care, which has 24 staff and 154 children enrolled, said the narrow lane to the nursery already created traffic issues, with construction traffic if the scheme was granted making the situation worse.

She said that would lead to a situation where the nursery’s legal standards needed for operation were contravened, placing it at risk of having to close.

“We’d leave 20 people without employment and 150 children with nowhere to go,” she told members, adding: “Health and Safety is the biggest concern for our children; children are walking up and down on a daily basis and would be at risk of any construction traffic.”

The scheme had returned to the July meeting, again recommended for approval, but members of the committee were told no decision could be made at that meeting, the item removed.

Members heard this was due to a recently reported due unfavourable condition of the water quality in the Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire Bay Marine Special Area of Conservation, which many schemes under the planning authority’s jurisdiction discharges into.

They heard, under interim advice of the change, the local planning authority does not have sufficient or robust information at this time to undertake or update the assessment of the habitats regulations [in respect of the item] to conclude the development would have no adverse impact.

Members were told the authority’s planners were still digesting the information, and interim advice from Natural Resources Wales, considering it would be “potentially unsound” to make any decision before sufficient information was available.

The application will return to a future committee.