Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Inspector allows 150-home greenfield scheme in Leicestershire town with unmet housing need

26 Feb 2015, 5:18 pm

A planning inspector has allowed an appeal that will permit the construction of up to 150 homes on farmland outside the development boundary of a Leicestershire town, after concluding that the area had a shortfall in housing.

Developer Bloor Homes applied to Oadby and Wigston Council in November 2013 for outline permission to build up to 150 homes on undeveloped farmland at the edge of the town of Oadby. The Council refused permission for the scheme in February 2014 – a decision the developer appealed.

In a decision letter dated 10 February (28-page / 232 KB PDF), planning inspector Geoffrey Hill said a policy in the Council's core strategy, which sought to restrict development outside the boundary of the 'Leicester Principal Urban Area' (PUA), was out-of-date because the housing figures on which it relied were based upon 2004 population projections.

The inspector noted that several Leicestershire local authorities, including the Council, had produced a strategic housing market assessment (SHMA) in May 2014, which estimated the housing need in Oadby and Wigston as between 75 and 100 homes per year. However, Hill noted that these figures had not been tested at a local plan examination, that they were based on 2011 data and that they were not sufficient to address a backlog of affordable housing in Oadby and Wigston.

Hill estimated that the housing need in the area "could be in the order of 147 [homes] per annum". Considering that there had been a small but persistent shortfall in housing delivery over the preceding eight years and that there was uncertainty over whether certain sites identified by the Council for housing could be developed within five years, the inspector concluded that there was only a 3.6-year housing supply in Oadby and Wigston.

In the context of "a need to identify additional housing sites and particularly for affordable housing", Hill said that "land adjacent to the boundary of the PUA could be released for development without undermining the broad strategy of concentrating development within the PUA".

The inspector said that factors weighing in favour of granting permission were the "significant contribution" to the shortfall in the Council's housing supply offered by the scheme, including "a significant number of affordable homes"; economic benefits "in terms of investment, employment and spending"; and the proposed provision of "recreational facilities which would be available for the wider community".

Overall, Hill was satisfied that "the proposed scheme is seen to represent sustainable development", with the benefits outweighing the moderate environmental harm of building in countryside which "does not have the characteristics of a high quality landscape".