Sun Lane, stories from the National Planning Policy Framework

Exhibit A: Sun Lane, Burley-in-Wharfedale.

What actually happened, was it down to government green belt policy? Why was it such a strange tale?

Here’s why.

Should anybody give you alternative reasons, then they’re simply either not aware of the facts, do not understand the planning process or are avoiding answering truthfully.

• The Local Planning authority was the City of Bradford MDC – and the Council supported the scheme.(Page 72, section 418 & 419). That makes a bit of a change, because it doesn’t often happen!

“419. The Council’s support for this application, expressed in its resolved position remains unaltered. The Council continues to consider that the application should be supported and ought to be allowed to proceed in the public interest.”

• In particular, it was common ground between the applicant (ceg:) and the Council that the development could be accommodated within this part of the Green Belt whilst maintaining the integrity of the wider Green Belt and the purposes and functions of the Green Belt lying between Burley-in-Wharfedale and Ilkley. The Inspector agreed. The Secretary of State, after refusing the planning application on 3 previous ocassions, this time (in a rather seismic shift from his 2019 refusal) had to agree.
• Plus, the Inspector’s reading of Bradford Council’s adopted Local Plan was that: (a) exceptional circumstances had already been shown to release Green Belt land for housing, (b) 700 new homes should be brought forward at Burley-in-Wharfedale as a Local Growth Centre which will require a “significant contribution” from Green Belt land, and (c) the plan had been formulated specifically to incorporate the development of 500 of those dwellings and a new primary school on the application site.
• Bradford Council’s housing land supply was under 2 years, so the Secretary of State accepted that the delivery of new housing should attract “very substantial weight”. For Local Plans to remain in the control of a local authority, they must have a minimum of a 5 year housing land supply, Bradford’s has been 2 years or less for the last 23 years.
• Significant weight also for the primary school, for biodiversity net gain, and very significant weight for the heritage benefits of using a Roman Temporary Camp as an educational resource.

If history is to be followed, there will be no primary school, and of course as we already know, there is no Roman Temporary Camp.

Sun Lane, who, what, where and why.

As the somebody who lead Burley’s challenge to the Sun Lane development, I’m constantly annoyed by the fairytales, spin, and misleading information about the grant of planning permission for this development, so here’s some good old fashioned, honest background information.

Chunky planning applications.

How often do chunky new applications for new housing meet the very special circumstances test? Well. Not often. Every year, at the Secretary of State / Planning Inspectorate level, there’s the odd decision here and there. A couple of years ago, there was a mini-flurry of Inspector decisions allowing schemes to meet the needs of older people in the Green Belt, including those with an element of care. Outside those cases, normally what you see is housing acting as enabling development for something else, e.g. a school (see e.g. the 2018 decision allowing 258 homes linked to the replacement of the Howard of Effingham School in Surrey, or the 2020 decision in Cheadle Hulme allowing 325 homes in connection with a fantastic, state-of-the-art new special educational needs school). Or, you know, to support delivering a world-class golf facility that could host the Ryder Cup. Something exciting like that.

But hang about. How then do we make sense of a 2018 decision letter allowing a 175 home scheme in Nottinghamshire in the Green Belt, or an October 2019 decision letter in York granting permission for 266 homes in the Green Belt? When that’s it – just new homes. No school. No golf course. No care. Just good old-fashioned houses for people to live in. Then to mix things up a bit, in April 2020 the Secretary of State granted permission for 500 homes in the Green Belt on the old Oxford Brookes campus. Again, just houses. Not a Ryder Cup in sight. And then in 2018, another 500 houses up in Burley-in-Wharfedale.

So what’s happening? Is this Government (gasp!) tearing up the Green Belt? Has the revolution come, friends, and we were so busy watching Oprah that we didn’t notice it?

Nope. The revolution isn’t upon us. Not yet.

Now, there is a bit of a trend afoot. But I think it’s a different, and slightly less headline-grabbing trend. It’s a trend which has nothing to do with tearing up the Green Belt. No, this trend links back to my favourite topic: the failure of the (Bradford Council’s) Local Plan process.

Now here’s the point: what these examples of hundreds of homes in the Green Belt passing the very special circumstances test are really about is what happens when Local Plans don’t move fast enough, or don’t move at all.

Eh? Do you know what they’re talking about.

Well that’s not my call to make, however, in election literature from 2021 we can see that the then Labour candidates believed that Bradford opposed the development and that “Bradford Council has little choice but to follow house building targets in their plans.”

The second of the two pieces states, “We will continue to object to building on Green Belt and where houses are built, insist they meet stringent standards.” Of the 180 objections received at Sun Lane, not one is from either of the two Labour candidates.

And finally… Grange Park Surgery.

More recently, from the pen of Anna Dixon, Parliamentary Candidate we have, “The Conservative’s broken planning system, and failure to fund the NHS and local government which is to blame.” Please refer to Section 216 (2) of the 2008 Planning Act, which specifies how Council Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is to be spent:

216 Application

• (1)Subject to [F1sections 216A(1), 216B(2) and] 219(5), CIL regulations must require the authority that charges CIL to apply it, or cause it to be applied, to [F2supporting development by funding the provision, improvement, replacement, operation or maintenance of infrastructure].
• (2)In [F3this section (except subsection (3)) and sections 216A(2) and 216B(2)] “infrastructure” includes—
  • (a) roads and other transport facilities,
  • (b) flood defences,
  • (c) schools and other educational facilities,
  • (d) medical facilities,
  • (e) sporting and recreational facilities,[F4and]
  • (f) open spaces[F5.]
  • F6 (g). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I know it to be true that the Labour Government had issued this mandate in 2008, quite frankly, I’m astonished that the Parliamentary Candidate is unaware of the Labour legislation. The funding for the Doctor’s Surgery is supposed to come from the CIL which is paid to Bradford Council. The CIL is split 75% to Bradford Council, the remainder, less a 5% handling fee, goes to Burley Parish Council.

As I’m sure Anna Dixon will agree that Grange Park are not asking for the full sum from CIL, rather a £100,000 of the £4.2 million CIL payment, does that seem fair?

Exceptional Circumstances – broken Conservative planning policy.

Under current planning rules in England, new buildings can only be constructed on green belt land in exceptional circumstances.You might be well advised to read this article from the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65619675 and then decide whether it is the Conservative policy that’s at issue.