Successful Objection: Green Belt Housing Scheme (Appeal Update)

We prepared a comprehensive objection which:

By focusing on clear policy conflicts, we provided the Council with strong, defensible refusal reasons.

South Staffordshire Council refused the application , agreeing that:

The Officer’s report gave substantial weight to Green Belt harm, citing the lack of very special circumstances, and concluded that refusal was the only appropriate outcome.

Following the Council’s refusal of the planning application, we were instructed to prepare a detailed professional representation to the Planning Inspectorate in advance of the public inquiry. Our brief was clear: set out, in planning terms, why this 100 home estate and shop at Boscobel Lane should still be refused at appeal, despite the district’s housing land supply position.

Our appeal representation focused on four main strands:

We argued that Bishops Wood is, and would remain, an inherently unsustainable location for a development of this scale. It is identified as only a small service village in the South Staffordshire settlement hierarchy, where open market growth is not planned. The appeal site lies outside the settlement, in open countryside, with no existing safe pedestrian links, no regular public transport and a very limited range of local services.

Our representation explained that even with the promised on site shop, bus subsidy and electric car club, residents would still need to leave the village by car for most day to day needs and all higher order services. We highlighted that these measures were, at best, partial and time limited, and could not overturn the basic locational shortcomings.

The Inspector agreed. In the decision, she found that although the scheme would provide some improvements – including a shop, an EV car club and a subsidised bus – Bishops Wood would “generally remain poorly served” and residents would still need to travel regularly out of the village for employment, education and services. She concluded that the site is not in a sustainable location and that there was insufficient evidence that it could be made sustainably located over the lifetime of the development.

A large part of our case dealt with Green Belt policy. We argued that:

We also stressed that the Green Belt harm, together with other harms, must be given substantial weight and can only be overcome by truly very special circumstances, which were simply not present here. The housing and affordable housing benefits, village shop, EV car club and bus subsidy were all acknowledged as positive, but we explained why these are ordinary planning benefits that attract, at most, moderate weight and do not reach the high “very special” threshold required to justify 100 homes in the Green Belt.

Again, the Inspector’s conclusions closely reflect this approach. She held that:

She then found that there were no material considerations, including the housing land supply position and the claimed benefits, that clearly outweighed the Green Belt harm and other harm so as to justify the scheme.

Put simply, our appeal representation helped to re frame the case away from “here is a much needed 100 home scheme with some sustainability measures” to “this is a fundamentally inappropriate major housing estate in an unsustainable rural Green Belt location that conflicts with the core spatial strategy.” We:

The outcome speaks for itself. The Inspector found the proposal contrary to the development plan taken as a whole and confirmed that there were no material considerations that justified setting that plan aside. The appeal was dismissed and the 100 home scheme at Boscobel Lane will not go ahead.