High Court overrules planning inspector's refusal of 45 homes in Northants village
A decision by the High Court has seen a housebuilder succeed in challenging the planning inspectorate's decision to turn down their bid for 45 homes in a small Northamptonshire village.
Developers Cora Homes were refused permission twice to build a small residential estate near Brington Road in Flore. The council's original rejection in November 2022 was followed by another appeal refusal by the Government's planning inspectorate in late 2023.
Now, two years after the original application and in another attempt to escalate the issue, this time to the High Court, the judge allowed the appeal, quashing the previous inspector’s decision.
The development will offer 45 homes, including 40 per cent affordable housing. The previous plannning inspector concluded that this would have resulted in a 'high level of harm' due to the location of the neighbourhood and its impact on views in the surrounding area. He concluded that these harmful effects outweighed the benefits and dismissed the appeal on that occasion.
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Mr Justice Mould, reviewing the case for the High Court, said that the claimant seeked to challenge the inspector's decision on six grounds. Just four were heard at court, suggesting that the inspector misinterpreted the meaning of the neighbourhood plan for Flore, did not regard the local need for additional housing properly and 'acted unfairly' in finding the site would not provide access to services and facilities.
He found that it the inspector was wrong to find that the proposed development was in breach of policy F4, which relates to affordable housing on rural exception sites. The policy states that small-scale affordable housing developments on the outskirts of Flore will be supported if they are no bigger than 10 homes, appropriate in scale and character and contribute to meeting local need.
The appeal inspector ruled that harm would 'likely' rise as it was a relatively large development of more than 10 units. However, Mr Justice Mould concluded that this interpretation was incorrect as the policy did not apply to the site. The Judge dismissed the other three grounds of challenge.
Mr Justice Mould ultimately allowed the appeal, quashing the inspector’s decision, saying it was clear that the inspector gave "significant weight" to the supposed conflict with policy F4.
He added that it cannot be safely said that the inspector "correctly approached his decision" and that without the policy F4 reasoning, he may have weighed the harm and benefit differently and not dismissed the appeal.
As the plans were only asking for outline approval, a reserved matters application laying out the exact detail of the site must be approved by West Northamptonshire Council before building can commence.