Uttlesford housing shock. Lack of strategy could open floodgates!
It gave me no satisfaction to read this morning a planning appeal decision in Elsenham. The appeal was against refusal by Uttlesford for 53 homes, including ‘affordable’ homes at The Orchard in Station Road. The appeal was allowed, meaning the homes can be built.
In paragraph 23 of the Orchard appeal decision the inspector writes “in the light of the council now proceeding to review its housing targets, the consequent delay to the Core Strategy and the inability to demonstrate a 5-year supply of deliverable housing sites, dismissing the appeal would not be justified”.
Elsewhere in the decision notice the inspector says he doesn’t believe the council’s predictions of housing being built at Woodlands Park in Dunmow, so he thinks that this more certain development at Elsenham is a better bet.
I have been saying since the summer that Uttlesford District Council put its head in the sand when it scrapped existing housing targets after the general election. Scrapping the regional housing targets without evidence of new local targets was a disaster which now looks like opening the floodgates to speculative applications outside any plan.
If a council doesn’t plan properly, others will do it for the council! That is a shocking position to get into. Recent news about the local housing shortage and unaffordability, especially for younger people, just emphasises how important it is to have a mature and realisitic approach to planning.
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June 14th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
[...] wrote last November about the planning crisis at Uttlesford brought about by a ‘head in the sand’ attitude [...]