Legal challenge to Huntingdonshire's Local Development Framework

Led by Houghton and Wyton Parish Council, the campaign group plans to challenge part of the Council's Local Development Framework, which sets out where the development should take place in the future.

The campaigners have been given permission to challenge the legality of the St Ives West Urban Design Framework, which they claim could result in the building of 500 more homes by 2026.

"The Huntingdonshire's Core Strategy has established the principle of growth to the west of St Ives," Huntingdonshire District Council said. "The UDF will provide the District Council’s planning guidance for the area, and will be a material consideration when determining any future planning applications on the area."

Consultations were open on the framework in August 2011 and following a review of the comments, it was approved by Council's cabinet.

A local judge studied the campaigners' grounds of challenge to decide whether they should be heard at the High Court and said that "the case warranted the barristers from both sides to present their case", Houghton and Wyton Parish Council said. "He did not dismiss our arguments and ‘we are still in the game’," it said.   

Houghton and Wyton Parish Council will proceed with its judicial review challenge, supported by the local campaign group Stop Houghton East Development (SHED). The Parish Council claims that the local planning authority failed to follow the correct procedures for bringing in the framework.
 
Paul Boothman, from SHED, which has raised £7,000 towards the legal costs of the case, welcomed the decision outside court.
 
"Our village is a very ancient village and this framework fills the gap between us and a market town," said Boothman according to Planning Magazine. "What we've been fighting for in terms of planning policy is a separate identity for our village. We're not against development, all we are trying to do is protect the separation, to leave a village a village and a town a town."
 
"We've tried to be constructive with the district council and there [have] been promises made, but they have come to nothing. This is very much a last resort, and not something we wanted to do, but we feel it is the only option left open to us," said Boothman.

No date has been set for the judicial review hearing.