The Environment Secretary is set to overrule Cambridge Council on the level of its threshold for affordable housing provision on a 1.3ha (3.21 acre) residential development site.
Bidwells, acting on behalf of an undisclosed client, had appealed against the council’s refusal to grant planning consent because of a lack of affordable housing element in the scheme.
Cambridge Council had insisted that affordable housing should be provided on the development of any site of 0.5ha (1.24 acres) or more. The council fixed the threshold contrary to one set out in a Government Circular which stipulated 1.5ha (3.7 acres). The Government has since consulted on lowering the threshold to 1ha (2.47 acres).
In what has become a test case, the appeal looked at whether the national level or the lower City Council threshold should be applied. Now the Environment Secretary has told Bidwells that he is “minded to approve” the firm’s appeal on the grounds that there were no special circumstances which would justify locally-set policies at odds with national guidance.
Peter Symonds of Bidwells, who handled the appeal, said: “The Government drew the Council’s attention to the inconsistency before it adopted its Local Plan, but the Council took no notice of this. Our client would have been worse off if the local threshold had been enforced, so we advised an appeal.”
He added: “Local authorities need to think long and hard before they set aside national guidance because of what they believe are local circumstances.”
EGi News 26/02/98
