18 Jun 100-Home Green Belt Scheme Could Set New Precedent
Housing developer Canton has been awarded planning permission to build 100 new homes on an unallocated site in the Hertfordshire green belt in a decision that experts are saying could set a new precedent for similar schemes.
The UK needs 345,000 new homes a year to tackle the housing crisis, and protecting the green belt has been called ‘blinkered self-interest’, and not about protecting the environment, reports City AM.
The bleak lack of housing supply in the UK was enough for planning inspector Christa Masters to conclude that the provision of housing was enough to demonstrate the ‘very special circumstances’ needed to justify speculative applications on green belt land.
It is an important decision as it follows a ministerial statement in 2015 by the then housing minister Brandon Lewis that appeared to rule out this argument being used to justify green belt schemes.
The site in question is in Colney Heath, which straddles St Albans and Welwyn Hatfield local authorities, neither of whom have up-to-date local plans and cannot demonstrate the five-tear supply of land that the government needs in its national planning policy.
The policy states that development on the green belt is in most cases inappropriate, and can only be justified by demonstrating ‘very special circumstances’, where harm to the green belt is ‘clearly outweighed’ by other factors.
The planning inspector concluded that the provision of 45 market-sale homes and 45 affordable homes both added ‘very substantial’ weight in favour of the proposed scheme.
She also said that the provision of 10 homes for self-build also weighed in favour, and ruled that: “These factors, when considered collectively, demonstrate that very special circumstances do exist”.
She dismissed the 2015 ministerial statement as it had not been included in subsequent updates to national planning policy, and relevant words in national planning guidance had been removed.
She said: “I can therefore see no reason to give this anything other than little weight as a material consideration.”
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