A DEVELOPER’S agent questioned whether Vale of White Horse District Council could meet its housing targets in a debate that saw planning permission refused for 300 new homes.

David Wilson Homes wanted outline permission to develop around 18 hectares of arable land, which includes two patches of woodland, to the north east of Grove, near Wantage. 

There were 37 public objections in total citing a number of concerns including sustainability and building on land in open countryside but the key argument surrounded the council’s five-year land supply. 

The proposed site is not allocated for housing in the council’s local plan but if an authority does not have enough space designated to meet its housing targets, national guidance says a “presumption in favour of sustainable development will apply”, meaning developers have greater scope to bring forward and gain permission for unallocated sites.

Vale of White Horse District Council says it has a 5.04-year supply, meaning it can stick more rigidly to its policies and allocated areas.

David Murray-Cox, an agent for David Wilson Homes, said the headroom in council’s calculations equated to around 50 dwellings and that “in the hugely significant Science Vale area, the supply drops to 4.6 years”.

He continued: “The reason for this is overly-optimistic assumptions about large sites and delays to delivery generally, and what it means in Science Vale, the area where the local plan specifically seeks to support economic growth, is that the level of housing delivery is not sufficient to support it.”

Councillors pressed Mr Murray-Cox on this issue who said that delivering housing on the scale anticipated on some of the larger sites was “exceptionally ambitious”. 

Asked to clarify the position, planning officer Stuart Walker said: “Officers consider we do have a five-year housing land supply as per our published statement of last year. 

“We are due a new statement later this year but the current position from our officers and policy colleagues is that we have a five-year supply for the reasons set out in the report. 

“The Science Vale ringfenced area is outlined in the report but the sum of both parts is a five-year supply for the district so full weight can be given to the local plan (when making decisions on unallocated sites).”

Councillor Janet Shelley (Con, Hendreds) highlighted other concerns raised through the debate. 

She said: “It is an unallocated site in our local plan, it is in the rural landscape and it has failed to provide sufficient details to assess the impacts on the historic (elements), environment, landscape and highways network. 

“More importantly, bearing in mind we are looking at access, one of the proposed accesses is objected to by Oxfordshire County Council’s highways team.”

Councillors unanimously supported the recommendation, made by planning officers, to reject the plans.