Stratford District Council Planning Committee says no to luxury homes for now and delays decision on controversial nature reserve
A planning fight which was due to come to a head last night (Wednesday) after years in the making was kicked further down the road – for now.
In one corner are the residents of Newbold, while in the other is developer CE Gilbert and Son.
In the middle is Stratford District Council Planning Committee which is due to decide on two planning applications made by the Gilberts and hotly contested by residents at its regular bi-monthly meeting at Elizabeth House last night.
The first application, involving a long-running dispute over land set aside for a nature reserve, was deferred. The motion to further investigate the viability of the environmental evidence put forward by Gilberts was unanimously carried by the committee.
The background to the case goes back to 2015 when an application to build 35 homes at The Burrows was approved by SDC. The deal was that developer Kendrick Homes and landowner the Gilberts would create an ‘environment offset’ by ensuring a nature reserve would be established at a tranquil spot adjacent to the development. The proviso is known as a ‘condition 19’. That didn’t happen and subsequently SDC issued an enforcement order.
In November 2022 the Gilberts put in an application to swap the initial proposed site for the reserve (Land A) which backs on to houses, to an adjacent patch (Land B) near the Stour which is prone to flooding.
Despite official reports approving Land B as suitable for a nature reserve, residents claim it is not, pointing to the regular flooding, and maintain it is all a cynical move to eventually put in a planning application for Land A and build yet more houses – of which there is no need as Newbold has already over 20 per cent more houses than its quota defined in Newbold’s neighbourhood plan.
Frustratingly for residents, despite there being strong evidence to dispute the findings of an environmental report by Warwickshire Wildlife into the viability of Land B, SDC planning officers recommended that permission be granted.
Resident Jon Pullen told the Herald: “It seems nothing short of astonishing by any humane logic or reason that as a village we are finding ourselves having to defend this extraordinary proposal that presents itself as development of a Nature Reserve when it is no more than cynical strategy to release land for further un-needed building in Newbold. This is the last tranche of land south of the river and North of the village that is an extraordinary haven for so much wildlife and fauna and flora.
“Five years of inactivity have put us in this position and if we don’t find the ability to fight poor behaviour from developers then we will lose any remaining control of planning that we feel that we may still have. This is a really good test of the planning process to determine whether environment and wildlife have any real leverage or whether the talk of protecting our countryside is anything more than rhetoric that crumbles at the first sight of profit. We have faith that our representatives in the planning committee will be able to see through this.”
Meanwhile the other planning application made by the Gilberts and objected to by residents involves the building of four detached houses, with four and five bedrooms, on Mill Mill Lane in the village.
Residents pointed to the fact that the neighbourhood plan found that what was needed was bungalows and smaller homes not luxury detached four-bedroom houses.
Another major concern was flooding in the area, and the fact that new houses would further stretch an over-burdened sewage system. One resident told the committee how since she moved into a house near the proposed new site in 1999 she had seen flooding steadily get worse since more houses had been built.
The committee listened to residents’ concerned and voted to reject the application. But they chose to justify the refusal on the grounds that the application saw gardens of the new houses intrude into the BUAB (Built-Up Area Boundary) and the flood plain.
However that does leave scope for the application to be amended and resubmitted.
CE Gilbert have been contacted for comment but had not responded by the time the Herald went to press.
