A plan for 135 homes in Bagshot has been refused despite the developer’s claim it could become 100 per cent affordable housing.
Somerston Development Projects proposed the scheme on 4.74 hectares of Green Belt land at Grove End, Bagshot but Surrey Heath Borough Council’s planning committee refused the proposal at its May 23 meeting
The meeting heard the developer had an arrangement with social housing provider Abri which would mean a minimum 50 per cent affordable homes which could possibly rise to 100 per cent.
But councillors refused to accept the outline application met the required ‘very special circumstances’ for Green Belt development.
However, Cllr Kevin Thompson warned that the council could lose out by its refusal.
He told the meeting: “Often we talk about this need for affordable homes, and we talk about numbers and we talk about statistics, but I think it’s important we talk about what that actually means.
“We have a situation where people that teach our kids and people that look after us in hospital can’t live in this borough and they have to commute in because we don’t have the affordable housing we need. I think we need to look at this very carefully because it does provide a significant amount of affordable housing.”
Cllr Thompson said he agreed with comments by Cllr Victoria Wheeler that not all Green Belt land was the same.
He went on: “There’s Green Belt and there’s Green Belt. There are lovely, flowing, sunlit uplands and there’s a kind of roundabout in between some major road systems.
“And I would say that if we are going to build on some Green Belt, this looks like a pretty good candidate for me. I think we need to be very careful about turning down applications on such subjective points about the quality of the Green Belt because, otherwise, we would not have any development in the borough whatsoever.”
The team on the project includes Boyer on planning, Motion on transport and John Wenman as ecological consultant.
Image: Google.
© Thames Tap (powered by ukpropertyforums.com).
Sign up to receive our weekly free journal, The Forum here.
