Planning Permission Secured for 80 House Scheme near Kettering
Brian Barber Associates have recently been successful in obtaining planning permission for the erection of 80 dwellings on land lying outside of the identified settlement boundary of Burton Latimer. The granting of planning permission follows an appeal decision into the same development back in September last year. This appeal confirmed that Kettering Borough Council’s assumptions on the supply of deliverable housing sites was unrealistic and that in reality they were unable to show that they had at least a five year supply of deliverable sites. Furthermore, the Inspector also concluded that the development of additional housing in Burton Latimer would not undermine the spatial strategy for the area as contained in the Core Strategy. Whilst the appeal was ultimately dismissed this was on the grounds that the contributions to highway and public transport improvements had not been agreed.
Following this decision, additional work was undertaken in order to resolve the transport issues and agreement reached with the Highway Authority on this matter. A further application was subsequently submitted with this new highways information. The Council this time agreed with the position that had been put forward that they could no, in fact, demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable sites and that the development of further housing in Burton Latimer would not conflict with the spatial strategy for the area.
The application was approved and demonstrates that the national guidance in paragraphs 69 and 71 of PPS3 remains the key consideration when considering planning applications where a five year supply of housing land cannot be demonstrated. This case also shows that it is important not to simply accept the housing figures which are presented by the Council. In this case, it was necessary to examine sites on an individual basis in order to determine whether they were deliverable and recalculate the land supply for the area following this exercise.
It is clear that there remains a window of opportunity for promoting the development of land outside of settlement boundaries where Councils have still failed in their responsibility to identify sufficient housing land for their area. The abolition of the Regional Spatial Strategies and the continued progress of the Localism Bill are likely to have a significant impact on proposals such as this. We are already seeing Councils reducing their housing targets from levels set out in Regional Spatial Strategies and the Government’s commitment to removing centralised guidance and empower local communities to lead decisions on planning applications is likely to remove the current provisions in paragraph 71 of PPS3. The concern, of course, is that given the historic failure of Councils to identify land to meet the need for their areas, the situation will not be improved when local communities are given a greater say in the decision making process. The question must be, therefore, how will the planning system provide the homes which are desperately needed in the country.
