Developer using Ashfield Council’s lack of local plan to push through 137-home greenbelt plans

Peveril Homes has submitted the plans with the homes earmarked for land off Park Lane, Selston, along the eastern boundary of the M1 motorway.

The company says, because the authority has not adopted a local plan and has failed to meet its five-year housing supply, the plans should be passed on “very special circumstances”.

It comes after the authority pressed forward with plans to remove two major settlements from the draft future housing plan for the area and take out 4,000 homes from its 15-year strategy.

Both the 1,000-home Cauldwell Road settlement, in Sutton, and the 3,000-home plan at Whyburn Farm on Hucknall’s greenbelt, will likely not be taken forward in the major housing document.

The Selston development, a mix of terraced, detached and semi-detached homes, would provide 24 two-bedroom homes, 52 three-bedroom properties and 61 four-bedroom houses, with 10 per cent of the properties marketed as ‘affordable’, including 12 two-bedroom houses and two three-bedroom homes.

However, despite being on protected land, the developer says the council’s difficulties agreeing on its long-term housing strategy opens the door for its plans.

The council needs to show where houses will be built over the next five years, but so far can only provide this for slightly more than two years, leaving a deficit of 1,535 homes.

In documents, the developer said: “There is little prospect this position will improve over the next two or three years pending the consultation, examination and adoption of a new local plan.

“The application site is in a sustainable location. It is available and deliverable.

“This represents a special circumstance which carries substantial weight.”

Concerns have been raised by some Selston residents that the new plans could impact their area.

In an objection on the council’s planning portal, Daniel Doherty said: “The land is greenbelt, therefore to even consider building houses on it is utterly disgusting.

“There are numerous wildlife species in the fields and trees. Selston is already congested in numerous ways, the schools are full, [we’ve] got one GP surgery and that can’t cope with the number of patients it has already.”

The authority’s planning committee will have the final say on the plans at a later date.