Revised plans for a rural housing development have been turned down at appeal.
In a decision notice published on Thursday (February 13), a planning inspector has dismissed proposals to build 15 homes on land to the south of Udimore Road — a site linked to the Old Manor House, a Grade II listed property in Broad Oak.
The proposals, from developer Redwood Land Investments Ltd, had been turned down by Rother District Council officers in February last year, due to concerns around both its design and its potential impact on the “landscape and scenic beauty” of the High Weald National Landscape (HWNL).
The refused scheme had been a revised version of plans submitted in 2022, which sought permission to build a 20-home scheme on the same site. This earlier scheme had also been refused at appeal in October 2023, as a result of similar concerns.
But, in documents submitted as part of the appeal, the developer argued the concerns around the HWNL should be outweighed by the need for additional housing within the district.
In these documents, a spokesman for the developer said: “In this instance Rother has failed to meet the needs of the present, with little prospect of meeting the needs of future generations. This failure leads to generations being unable to own their own home.
“This is evidenced in Rother’s severe and long-established shortfall in both their five-year Housing Land Supply (2.89 years) and their three-year Housing Delivery Test (57%). These aspects cumulatively trigger paragraph 11 (d) of the National Planning Policy Framework; [the] ‘tilted balance’ in favour of Sustainable Development.”
The spokesman added: “We would ask the Inspector to grant permission to provide much-needed market and affordable housing in an area that is suffering from long under-provision”.
But this argument failed to win over the appeal inspector, who said the scheme would be, “clearly incongruous with the verdant and semi-rural nature” of the surrounding area.
In their decision notice, the inspector said: “The appellant has made the case that the vast majority of the district is covered by the HWNL designation and that, without releasing land from the HWNL, the council would never be able to meet or deliver its housing targets.
“I am not presented with any substantive evidence to demonstrate why housing could not be delivered outside of the HWNL, or on brownfield sites in existing settlements, or why the policies for land outside the HWNL are any more prohibitive of development than the HWNL designation.”
The inspector added: “I have already found the proposal to cause harm to the HWNL in respect of spatial and visual landscape harm, as well as impacts upon one of the identified special qualities.
“I am not, therefore, presented with any justification that would amount to exceptional circumstances to allow development in the HWNL.”
In light of this view, the appeal was dismissed.
For further information on the scheme, see application reference RR/2023/1181/P on the Rother District Council website.
