Residents of East Bergholt in Suffolk have successfully persuaded a judge to block plans for a housing development in their village.
The village’s parish council triumphed in its High Court challenge to Babergh District Council’s decision to approve 10 homes in the village, which is in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and believes the decision will strengthen its bid to resist other much larger housing developments in the village.
The parish council argued that the approved development was not in keeping with the village’s development plan, which was almost completed when the council granted consent.
And Mitting J agreed that the planning permission was flawed and should be quashed.
David Bowman, a senior associate at law firm Royds Withy King, who acted for East Bergholt Parish Council, said they were delighted with the decision: “This is a decisive and strategic win for the parish council which represents the villagers of East Bergholt and which challenged Babergh District Council’s disregard for the needs of the local community when it granted planning permission for this and other major developments in the village.”
“The judge decided that Babergh District Council had made a number of material legal errors, including misrepresenting to councillors what ‘local housing needs’ means in the context of the Local Plan. Councillors had been told that they needed to take into account the needs of the district as a whole, when in fact they had to take into account only the needs of the core village and its immediate environs.
“The judge agreed with the parish council’s interpretation and evidence that the needs of the local area are different to those of the wider district. He also agreed that the district council had failed to carry out the correct exercise in deciding whether this development on land within the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty had an exceptional reason to overrule the ordinary prohibition on development.
A separate decision by the district council to allow 144 homes to be built on another site in the same village is being reconsidered – but campaigners believe it is unlikely to be approved following today’s decision. Another development now in the planning process for over 75 homes at another site in the village is also likely to be affected.
The decision is seen as a major setback to Babergh District Council’s plans to grant permissions for more housing developments in the rural villages within its district.
