61 more houses at Restrop Road ~ refused

A bit of a bright spot in the current gloom.

The application for the 61 houses at Restrop was refused.

The reasons were conflicts with the Purton Neighbourhood Plan, particularly due to the significant increase in the number of dwellings over and above those set out in our Neighbourhood Plan. Also, the increased pressure upon the rural road network due to the lack of services, the facilities within the village of Purton and lack of sustainable transport modes for the future occupiers who would be required to travel beyond Purton by private car. The additional access into the site from Restrop Road, entailing the loss of mature roadside hedging, with the need for additional traffic calming, would result in the urbanisation of this open rural site and would harm the character, appearance and visual amenity of the locality.

So, overall, the development would not represent sustainable development.

The Wiltshire Council, in its decision, also noted that the proposed development did not make any provisions for securing: highway improvements and financial contributions, affordable housing, financial contributions towards nursery place provision, measures to secure the provision of public open space and play equipment with ongoing maintenance on site or financial contributions towards playing pitches off site, financial contributions for provision of waste facilities, and measures to ensure net biodiversity gain on site.  Also, the application did not contain sufficient information to enable a full assessment of the impact upon the archaeological features that could be affected by the development. The decision does point out, though, that the specific reasons for refusal (in this paragraph) could be overcome through submission of further details and/or through agreement of financial conditions.

Although some of the reasons for refusal does allow the applicant to come back, the reasons in the first paragraph above are hard to overcome, so we will just have to see…given the Government’s recent exhortation to “build build build”.

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