Local councils fight planned Melksham East development

THE planning application for 500 houses on land at Blackmore Farm in Melksham East has been strongly objected to by Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Council (MWPC) on grounds the application is not plan-led and conflicts with Wiltshire Council’s emerging draft plan and the town’s joint Neighbourhood Plan. 

The new outline planning application, submitted by Gleeson Land, is for 500 houses and includes land for a primary school, a mixed-used hub, 5,000 square metres of employment land and open space. 

Both councils say this would be an overdevelop-ment that sits outside the settlement boundary of the Neighbourhood Plan and would cause environmental impact. The councils also say there is insufficient infrastructure in the town to accommodate the development.

Gleeson Land applied to develop 650 houses on the same site last year, however Melksham News understands that the new application for 500 houses is to replace the previous application.

Recent government changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) now recognise where communities have neighbourhood plans in place. Furthermore, Wiltshire Council must now only demonstrate four years’ worth of land for housing allocation, rather than five years. As a result, new guidance to local councils says that “speculative housing planning applications are less likely to be recommended for approval where there is conflict with the neighbourhood plan.”

Objections

Following discussion at a committee meeting at the end of last month, Melksham Town Council listed the council’s objections saying, “Melksham Town Council objects to this application on the grounds that the proposal conflicts with NPPF, Wiltshire Council Core Strategy (Core Policy 2), the allocation in the draft local plan, the draft Neighbourhood Plan, the existing Neighbourhood Plan and the Wiltshire Design Guide. The proposed Primary School does not comply as it is a one-form entry. There is no information on affordable housing or an environmental study.”

Melksham Without Parish Council (MWPC) also objected to the application, at a planning meeting held last week.

Chair of the council’s planning committee, cllr Richard Wood said, “Whilst it’s a housing site allocation in Wiltshire Council’s draft Local Plan, this is far too premature. The point of the local plan and the Melksham Neighbourhood Plan is that any future development is plan-led, with the necessary infrastructure in place in tandem with the houses.

“This application would mean the houses coming forward before plans to extend Melksham Community Oak school and to build new nurseries and primary schools. It has more houses than in the strategic plan policy, but not the five hectares of employment land, just some offices, not a decent sized community hub with room for a substantial community centre, not a highway link via the roundabout on Eastern Way and with no regard to the other planned development in the area.

“The government changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) before Christmas gave much more strength to the local plans, and the parish council urge Wiltshire Council to use these new powers to turn down this application.”

Wiltshire councillor cllr Nick Holder, says that if the application is approved, he will be asking, on behalf of MWPC, for it to be ‘called in’ by the Secretary of State, who will decide if an inquiry should be held. If this goes ahead, the Secretary of State will then make a decision based on the evidence of the inquiry.

Cllr Nick Holder said, “This is over development and is environmentally damaging, and access to the site is inadequate.”

New application – ’have your say’ 

Cllr Nick Holder has also urged the public to be aware that this is a new planning application for Blackmore Farm and that residents should not confuse this with the previous application for 650 houses. He encouraged residents to make their views known and explained that people who submitted comments about the previous planning application, should send their comments for this new application. 

Details about the new application for 500 houses can be found on the Wiltshire Council’s planning portal via this reference number: PL/2023/11188. The deadline for comments to be submitted is 26th February, with a decision due by 17th April.