Council takes legal action after permission given for 1,000-home developments

A borough council has launched legal action after the Communities Secretary gave permission for two housing developments that are expected to deliver 1,000 homes in Gloucestershire.

Developer Comparo was given the go-ahead in July to build 450 homes at Homelands Farm, while Welbeck Strategic Land was given permission to build 550 homes to the north west of Bishop's Cleeve at a site known as Cleevelands.

Tewkesbury Borough Council said this was despite widespread local opposition and the fact that it was drawing up a strategy for dealing with housing need in partnership with local authorities in Cheltenham and Gloucester.

After receiving legal advice, the borough council has now lodged a legal challenge in the High Court.

It said: “The challenge is based on the need to deliver housing in a way that is consistent with central government policy, which focuses on locally-based decisions about the scale and location of housing development.”

Cllr Derek Davies, Lead Member for Built Environment at Tewkesbury, said: "A senior planning barrister has advised that there is a strong case to challenge the Secretary of State's decision.

"There is an overarching principle in planning that requires policy to be interpreted and applied in such a way that is consistent with the reasons behind that policy. We feel that the Secretary of State has failed to apply this principle in this case.”

Cllr Davies said the council considered that the decisions went against the Government's declared policy of removing top-down planning and allowing planning decisions to be made at the local level by the communities that are most affected.

“It is inconsistent with the Localism Act and the principles behind that,” he said. “The council is concerned that the government appears to be imposing decisions in an ad hoc way through the appeal process before decisions on the future development of the area have been made at a local level in accordance with the government's localism agenda.”

Cllr Davies pointed out that there were already a number of existing permissions throughout the borough for new housing. The relatively slow speed of house-building on these sites, “where indeed work has started”, indicated that it was not a lack of planning permissions that was delaying the delivery of housing, he suggested.

"While we fully support the need to provide housing to meet current and future needs, this should be through a plan-led process, and we are continuing to work with our partners at Cheltenham and Gloucester on a Joint Core Strategy that will aim to meet those needs on a properly planned local basis."