89-home development rejected in Bucks village where services are at 'breaking point’

A plan to build 89 new homes in a Bucks village where “public services are at breaking point” has been rejected.

Richborough Estates Ltd’s application for the housing estate at Churchway, Haddenham was refused by the Buckinghamshire Council Central Area Planning Committee this week.

After more than two hours of discussions, councillors rejected the housing plans, defying planning officers’ recommendations to approve the development.

They voted against the plans twice, with a majority of eight to one, with one abstention in the second vote. Richborough can now appeal the committee’s decision.

The proposals were for up to 89 homes on fields comprising paddocks and part of a former orchard in the north of Haddenham, a village with a population of just over 4,000.

Around 30 per cent of the scheme would have been affordable housing, according to Richborough.

The applicant called for the development’s contribution to the housing supply in Buckinghamshire to be looked on favourably by planners – especially given the “lack of a five-year housing land supply” to ensure there are enough homes in the future.

However, local residents and councillors objected to the development due to concerns over flooding, the strain on local services, traffic, the impacts on the environment and the loss of agricultural land.

In a recent letter of objection, Haddenham resident Mrs Gloria Dales claimed that the 89 homes would be upstream of a recent blockage in the local sewer system caused by Storm Henk.

She wrote: “Living with a manhole full of waste is stressful, especially when Thames Water cannot fix it!”

Her concerns about the development’s impact on Haddenham’s services were echoed by the Chair of Haddenham Parish Council David Truesdale in a passionate speech to the planning committee.

He said: “Our roads are shameful, because of construction traffic. Our public services are at breaking point.

“Our three schools are all now full. The health centre is struggling to offer appointments, and guess what, all of this has to be delivered on existing budgets.

“Our capacity to support any more is exhausted. There are significant adverse impacts weighing on this balance. Please, please refuse this.”

Despite planning officers recommending the scheme for approval, their report noted there would be a “significant level of harm due to loss of the intrinsic character and beauty of the site and incursion of built development into the open countryside”.

A previous appeal decision in 2018 for a similar but smaller development on the same site was also dismissed on appeal.

Since then, a Redrow site of 273 homes has been given planning permission, while another large development – the Grove – has also been opened nearby by Dandara.

The refusal of an almost identical development on the site in 2017 was highlighted by Councillor Richard Newcombe, who picked apart planning officers’ recommendations to push through the similar 89-home plan.

He said: “There seems to me to be no material difference between the two. There seems to have been an almost 180-degree turn over six years.”

Councillor Susan Lewin said the harm of the development on the environment and local services outweighed its benefits.

She claimed that local schools did not have enough capacity as it is, with two reception children unable to attend school in the village this year, and that the health centre “is struggling to cope” with the influx of new residents.

She said: “Anyone who moves into the village now, thinking ‘I am going get into one of these lovely new developments’, won’t get their children into the village school.”

Councillor Lewin added that the proposed development could push up Buckinghamshire Council’s home-to-school transport costs – one of the council’s four main budgetary pressures.