Plans for 130 homes in Hampton Magna rejected

Plans for 130 new homes in Hampton Magna have been kicked into touch by councillors unhappy that the affordable houses were clumped together.
The Arras Boulevard site is marked as H27 in the Warwick District Council's Local Plan.The Arras Boulevard site is marked as H27 in the Warwick District Council's Local Plan.
The Arras Boulevard site is marked as H27 in the Warwick District Council's Local Plan.

During Tuesday's meeting of Warwick District Council’s planning committee, neighbours and the local parish council also spoke out against the scheme but their concerns related to access to the site rather than how the properties were distributed.

Planner Lucy Hammond explained that the scheme for land off Arras Boulevard, which had been drawn up by Miller Homes, had already been altered to make sure the 40 per cent of properties that were affordable were not lumped together in certain areas.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She said: “The original plan concentrated the affordable housing in the extreme corners of the site and there were no shared ownership houses at all. We have had a few amendments and they are no longer concentrated in the corners but spread across the site.”

The Arras Boulevard site is marked as H27 in the Warwick District Council's Local Plan.The Arras Boulevard site is marked as H27 in the Warwick District Council's Local Plan.
The Arras Boulevard site is marked as H27 in the Warwick District Council's Local Plan.

But councillors were unconvinced with Cllr Andrew Day (Con Bishop’s Tachbrook) saying that the changes hadn’t gone far enough.

He said: “On a site visit I think we all declared some concern about the distribution of the affordable housing and the density particularly to the rear and centre of the site as opposed to the probably more profitable plots of land to the extremities.

“There is one close where there is 100 per cent social housing - 14 dwellings in total at the end of a cul-de-sac. That does not comply with the neighbourhood plan and it doesn’t comply with our own policies.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I have great difficulty in seeing this as cohesive and supporting community life when we have those sort of housing configurations particularly when we have the more marketable, profitable larger homes all along the front and looking out over the better views.

“This does not strike me as being sufficiently well thought through and I can’t support it.”

Other issues brought up by councillors included more than £200,000 of section 106 money put aside for enhancing a local bus service only to hear that the cash would only cover five years and that the route would not actually go into the new housing development.

A report to the meeting said there had been 75 letters of objection with Budbrooke Parish Council also opposed to the scheme.

A suggestion to defer the application proved unpopular but a proposal to refuse permission on the grounds of the housing mix being contrary to the neighbourhood plan was passed by seven votes to two.