The significance of the Belmont parkland has been re-affirmed and the landscape protected from housing development in a recent decision by the Planning Inspectorate. This is a good result for all those who opposed the scheme in the first place, and it might put a brake on some of the more rapacious developers’ applications in rural Herefordshire.
The outcomes for the Council are mixed. Their Planning Committee’s refusal of planning permission has been endorsed, but the Planning Department’s attempt to claim that there was a Five Year Housing Land Supply by the time of the November 2013 Appeal Hearing has been severely criticised by the Planning Inspector. Substantial legal costs in this regard have been awarded against the Council.
As Here for Hereford pointed out in a post (February 9 2013), the Five Year Housing Land Supply statement is a critical feature of the current planning rules. Those Councils which do not have a robust statement indicating there are sites ready to come forward for development at an agreed level over the next five years will find that their development plans can be overturned at the behest of developers. This was the aim of the developers, Lioncourt Homes (Pegasus Group), in launching their Belmont Home Farm Planning Appeal. They argued that the Council did not have a Five Year Housing Land Supply, and the Planning Inspector agreed with them.
The Inspector did not, however, agree that in the absence of the Five Year HLS, the proposal for 85 dwellings on the specified Home Farm segment of the Belmont parkland should be approved. He determined that the housing proposal would so significantly harm the character and appearance of the parkland area that it would be at odds with the environmental dimension to sustainable development enshrined in the National Planning Policy Framework. He concluded that:
The adverse environmental impacts and the harm to the setting of heritage assets significantly and demonstrably outweigh the economic and social dimensions of the scheme.
The Council’s Local Plan cannot now go out to further consultation until a robust Five Year Housing Land Supply statement is in place. The Plan also awaits a Nutrient Management Plan, a viable Infrastructure Delivery Plan and further Road Modelling. Would anyone bet on the Plan being approved, before the expiry of the underpinning Local Transport Plan in March 2015?
