Wealden planners have approved proposals for a housing development in Maresfield.
On Thursday (October 17), Wealden District Council’s Planning Committee North granted outline planning permission to build 10 homes on land to the south of The Drive.
While the committee broadly agreed that the outline scheme should be approved, there was some disagreement around what conditions should be imposed as part of the grant of planning permission.
The committee as a whole wanted to impose a range of additional conditions beyond those recommended by officers. These agreed conditions included: a 16-week time limit on the negotiations of a legal agreement; firmer wording around acoustic management; and an additional condition setting out times when construction works could take place on the site.
The disagreement surrounded the use of an additional ‘Grampian-style’ condition, which would require the developer to secure upgrades to the site’s foul drainage connections before any other development could begin.
Officers had cautioned that there was no strong evidence of such a condition being needed on the site, however. In other words, officers held the view the area did not have acute issues surrounding sewage infrastructure.
The council has previously imposed such conditions on a number of developments in the south of the district and officers warned that doing so in this case could risk these other conditions being undermined.
Stacey Robins, the council’s head of planning, said: “This [form of condition] is a really controversial matter and is not liked by developers. We’ve got appeals against the imposition of that condition in the south of the district. My worry is we will be accused of just adding it willy-nilly and adding it without evidence.
“Let’s attach the condition when there are grounds to do so and if we don’t here — which I think is the right thing to do — we can hold our heads up high … that we are not just attaching it for the sake of it.”
Some councillors felt this was a reasonable concern, pointing out that national planning guidelines require conditions to be reasonable and evidence-based. Others argued that the committee should add the condition while it had the opportunity to do so, as it would be unable to add it at a later stage of the planning process.
Ultimately, the committee opted to approve the scheme without the Grampian-style condition.
For further information on the proposals see application reference WD/2023/2910/MAO on the Wealden District Council website.
