Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Inspector allows 250-home greenfield development at edge of Durham village

29 Jan 2015, 5:07 pm

A planning inspector has an allowed an appeal that will permit the construction of up to 250 homes in the open countryside in county Durham, after deciding that a council's failure to make an objective assessment of its housing needs meant policies in its development plan were out-of-date.

Developer Gladman Developments submitted an application to Darlington Borough Council in 2013, seeking outline permission to build up to 250 homes on a field on the outskirts of the village of Middleton St George. The Council refused the application in March and the developer appealed to the secretary of state for communities and local government.

In a letter dated 12 January (22-page / 195 KB PDF), planning inspector M Middleton noted that the housing requirement in the Council's 2011 core strategy was derived from the revoked North East regional plan. The figures used in the regional plan were "never an objective assessment of the need of the area", said Middleton, and the Council had not made an objective assessment since. Consequently, the Council was unable to demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable housing sites "regardless of the amount and quality of the data on the supply side", the inspector said.

The appeal site was technically in open countryside outside the development limits set by saved policies from the 1997 Darlington local plan. However, the inspector noted that the limits had been intended to direct development only up to 2006 and said policies directing development towards urban areas should be considered out of date "in as much as they prevent development adjacent to the existing settlements".

Middleton found support for the proposal in a core strategy policy which allowed for "windfall housing" adjacent to large villages should the delivery of housing stock fall to 80% or less of that required, and insufficient sites be deliverable within existing settlements. The inspector said that this policy support and the fact that the site was sustainable, being close to the shops and facilities of Middleton St George and well connected by public transport, attracted "significant weight in favour of the appeal proposal".

Middleton concluded that the benefits of the scheme, including the provision of affordable and market housing in an area of "urgent" housing need and proposed funding towards education, sports and transport, were not outweighed by the adverse impacts including harm to the character, appearance and openness of the countryside.