Fighting a Mass Development. Anyone been there and won?

[HarrietSchulenberg]

The village where I grew up has seen some medium scale developments over the last 10 years. The developments have been mainly 4-5 bed "executive" style homes with a few "affordable" (tiny, badly built but coming in just under £200k) houses thrown in. All in all there were around 100 houses spread over 3 sites. The population is around 2000, with around 800 homes and is pretty much at capacity for existing services. There are currently over 20 houses on the market for under £300k. 10 of those are under £200k. So there is no shortage of available housing.

A strategic planning company is about to submit an application to build 150 houses on the edge of the village. Assuming an average of 3 occupants per house, this means a population increase of around 450, ie over 50%. Aside from the destruction of green fields, the village just can't cope with such an increase. The schools are full and congestion in the High Street at busy times is a nightmare. It's 20 miles away from the nearest mass employment and 8 miles from the nearest small town. The bus service is infrequent and poor so residents have to use cars.

But the county council appear keen to develop the village. To develop it out of all recognition. Allegedly in line with national housing policy to supply a stupid amount of new houses.

So, my questions to you lovely Mumsnetters are:

Have you ever fought against (and won) such a development?
Do you have any tips to share on how to fight?
How the hell were the national housing policy figures worked out? How do they predict how many houses are needed and where?
Is there really a housing shortage? I don't mean social housing, which is most definitely in short supply, but shortage of housing to actually buy.

I'm nipping in and out all afternoon so not around all the time, but I'd be very grateful for any help, wisdom or advice that can be offered. And in case anyone wonders why I'm bothered - my parents' tiny bungalow backs right on to this development and their one little patch of open view will be lost forever. They moved there 30 years ago sot they could have a little bit of countryside, and it really is a little bit. I also grew up there and only live 10 mins down the road. I am not a NIMBY and I'm not against development per se, but I also don't want my home village to be ruined, which it WILL be by this development.

Sorry, can't add up. Increase is nearly 20% of houses. 22.5% population.

Firstly you need the WHOLE village on board to fight this.

Secondly, there is absolutely no point in talking about views and openness - unless it is part of the 'setting' of the village which is particularly important (which it might be).

You need to look at Sustainability. One key thing that you say is about the lack of public transport. How easy is it to get jobs in the village? Is there a big supermarket? Where is the nearest high school and is there a school bus (I am presuming that there is a primary school).

Thirdly you need to contact Planning Aid asap and ask about Neighbourhood plans asap - if you can get one in preparation that looks realistically about the potential for the next 25 yrs and acknowledges that there will need to be some development over that period, albeit at an appropriate scale and and level, you will be in a stronger position.

In terms of housing numbers, look at your District Council's website - they should have something called a Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment - find out how many houses they are predicting that they can accommodate and whether they need to allocate more and if so, how many, and what strategy these should be allocated in (often in rural / semi-rural districts, 80% goes to the biggest town, 15% to larger villages and 5% over the rest of the district, but that's a back of the envelope estimate). Ring up the Council and ask what their current 5 year land supply is - if they have 5 years they don't actually need to allocate more at the present time so you'll have a little breathing space (although you should move things along asap).

Does the local authority have a published strategic plan (ours is called the Core Strategy)? This should say where they intend building over the next few years, and if your village is one of those then you'll probably be out of luck. The plan should be on the Local Authority website.

Also, does the village have a neighbourhood plan? Under the Localism Bill they can write their own plan, which could say that they don't want any more housing. However, it's not yet been tested out what happens when a neighbourhood plan is at odds with the LA strategic plan.

X-posted!

Village has a Parish Plan which states that it doesn't want further development. Don't know about the local authority's plan for the area - will have a look.

There are virtually no jobs in the village. Just a few in shops and there's a small business park a mile outside, but there's certainly not enough jobs there. The nearest place of mass employment is 20 miles away. Nearly 90% of the local community currently drive cars to work, according to Parish Plan. There's a small supermarket, more of a large shop really, you can't do a full week's shop there, and no petrol station.

The primary school is full and the high school has already had to increase it's intake by 20 over the last 2 years. Unfortunately this is to accommodate the high number of requests for places from out of catchment so there is some room for movement there if push comes to shove. Not for the Primary school, though.

Does anyone know how council's actually predict their future housing needs? Is it based on the number of existing teenagers, or some hypothetical hope for expansion of employment that will bring people with it?

I wouldn't argue with the council about how they come up with their statistics - that way madness lies. Object on the basis of the Parish Plan. See if anyone in the village knows about planning - you might find someone with some specialist knowledge. Start leafleting!

What used to happen is that the Regional Planning Authority looked at long term forecasts, migration etc and then came up with a sensible looking target that was tested at a Hearing in front of an Inspector - and then this regional figure was divided up amongst the local authorities in that region (by the Region, again tested by the Inspector). This was then in the Regional Plan as a requirement which the LPA had to follow. However, Regional Strategies are being abolished - and its up to LPA's to make their own decisions on appropriate housing numbers. Some are sticking to the regional totals as they agreed with them, others are allocating more in the hope of attracting more people to live and work in the area, and some are proposing fewer. However, if your authority does not have a 5 year housing land supply at the moment its quite difficult to fight proposals that are in sustainable locations, even if they are greenfield and there are alternative brownfield sites available.

If the secondary school is in your village, you might also be able to muster up support from other villages who rely on it for their children's education - as the people in the new development would be closer and therefore, presumably, bump their children out of the catchment area.

Thank you for all these replies, much to look into here.

If you want to fight it, I'd suggest forming an action group and contacting local solicitors. I know of a firm that has just helped for an action group in Yorkshire mostly on a pro-bono basis stop a development of 800 houses.

our village is fighting our major development on the basis of village green status (of the land the proposed development is on). If you can prove the land has been unrestrictedly used for many years (everyone has been asked to dig out photos from the 1970s of sledging, picnics etc) then it could get village green status, which means it can't be developed.