Plans for 53 houses near Semington Road denied after Wiltshire Council U-turn

PLANS to build 53 houses on agricultural land to the west of Semington Road, which were strongly opposed by Melksham Without Parish Council and Melksham Town Council, have been refused by Wiltshire Council, despite their previous decision to approve the application last year.

The decision on the planning application submitted by developers, Terra Strategic, was made at Wiltshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee on Wednesday 6th March. It was one of three local planning decisions which Wiltshire Council looked at again, in light of new guidelines following the government’s changes to its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) at the end of last year.

Changes to the NPPF now provide more protection for communities against speculative housing developments being forced onto towns. Under the new rules, local authorities such as Wiltshire Council, now only need to have a rolling four years of housing land supply, rather than five. Previously, when authorities did not meet the land supply requirement, councillors said they were forced to approve applications that they would prefer to refuse. Now, Wiltshire Council is able to overturn previous planning decisions.

Since the first plans were submitted, they have been strongly opposed by Melksham Without Parish Council and Melksham Town Council, with both councils citing concerns around the loss of a rural buffer, poor pedestrian access to the town and over the A350, lack of infrastructure and impact on the Melksham Canal Link.

Speaking at Wiltshire Council’s strategic planning committee meeting, chair of Melksham Without Parish Council, cllr John Glover said, “We oppose both this application and the previous one because it was not in accordance with our plan-led development, nor in accordance with our made Neighbourhood Plan.

“We are not against development and we have shown in our Neighbourhood Plan that we have allocated sites. This is not plan-led and will not provide the sustained development that we are looking for in this area.

“We have been provided with affordable housing from all the other non-planned developments. All the housing that we have been provided with, there is no new employment land and almost everybody who needs work will be out-commuting from this area and it’s not in accordance with the core strategy.”

During the meeting, parish councillor Richard Wood echoed cllr John Glover’s concerns and raised the point that children who would be living in the development would have to cross the ‘dangerous’ A350 road to get to school.

Chairman of the meeting, cllr Howard Greenman said that the difficulties of children being able to safely get to school was another of the “bits and pieces thrown in the mix.”As a result, he said that this made it “unpalatable for me last time, although we approved it, it makes it unpalatable to me today.”

The decision to refuse the application was carried, with seven voting to refuse the application and one voting against.