Government to decide Wiltshire homes plan in “alarming” move
The Secretary of State will now have the final say on plans for new homes near Melksham
The government is to decide whether 300 new houses can be built on the edge of a Wiltshire town, in a move described as “alarming”.
Back in August, members of Wiltshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee decided that facing the ire of then Government minister Angela Rayner would be preferable to facing the anger of the electorate.
Bruised by a “public backlash” over a decision to approve the building of 410 houses in Royal Wootton Bassett, the committee turned down an application by strategic land developer Catesby Estates to build 300 homes Snarlton Farm, just north of Melksham’s rugby and football club.
Melksham Without Parish Council had, just 24 hours earlier, seen the adoption of its community-led five-year planning document, the Neighbourhood Plan.
Backed by 88 per cent of the electorate who voted in a parish referendum, the plan set out where houses could be built over the next five years – and Snarlton Farm was not on the list.
Furthermore, the parish had more than met its obligation to allocate land for housing, according to the new document.
Catesby Estates announced its decision to appeal, and Wiltshire Council agreed to fight its corner.
But this week, the Planning Inspectorate told the authority that the decision would be made not by a local Planning Inspector, but by the Secretary of State for Housing, who is now Steve Reed following Ms Rayner’s departure from the role.
The matter was raised at a meeting of the council’s Liberal Democrat-led cabinet by Conservative ward councillor Nick Holder.
“The reason given is that this is a residential development of over 150 units and/or a site of over five hectares,” Cllr Holder told cabinet members.
“What I would like to know is if this is specific just to this appeal, or is this likely to create a precedent, not just in Wiltshire but elsewhere, that developments of this size will no longer be decided by local authorities, but are going to be determined by the Secretary of State in the government’s race to build houses?”
He added: “The concern I have locally is that it will potentially invalidate the purpose of a local neighbourhood plan and potentially invalidate our strategic planning committees.”
Cabinet member for housing Adrian Foster said: “We have had several consultations from the government over the last six months about new planning policy and approach, none of which is encouraging from a local democracy point of view.
“They want it to be officers’ decisions for developments below 50 houses and not to go to committees.
“And they want to take away quite a lot of the environmental improvements that we’ve been put in. They are rolling back all the improvements to the planning system that we’ve had.”
“They want to reduce the objections to planning so that they can meet their 1.5 million houses target by the end of their term of office, and that seems to be the main drive with everything else being thrown under the bus.”
And council leader Ian Thorn said: “I’m absolutely appalled by what you’ve described. I think it sweeps away a huge part of our local democracy.
“It’s alarming. It’s absolutely unacceptable. It is a derogation of democratic duty. And I would want all of us in this room to be prepared to fight this every step of the way.”