Secretary of State approves Ashfield countryside housing development

The SoS said in his decision letter that he had given "significant weight" to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which indicates that planning permission should be granted where a Council cannot demonstrate a five year housing land supply.

The SoS referred to the planning inspector's report, which also recommended that planning permission be granted and which stated that it was common ground between the parties that the Council did not have a five year housing land supply and that its undersupply was "significant".

The Council had refused the application based on local policies which objected to housing development in the countryside. However, the inspector said that these policies were out of date and that the Council had failed to apply the NPPF's presumption in favour of sustainable development.

"Whilst any loss of countryside is regrettable, it is inevitable in this housing market area, given the Council's failure, by a considerable margin, to have identified a five -year supply of housing," she said.

The SoS agreed with the inspector in rejecting the Council's argument that granting permission would be premature in light of the Council's forthcoming Local Plan (LP). The inspector said in her report that the scale and location of the housing "would not be so substantial that it would raise any issues that would be best addressed in a LP".

"To delay the determination would frustrate the Government's efforts to boost significantly the supply of housing," she said.

The SoS also said that, although the proposed development was located outside the defined settlement limits in the Council's local policies, the development would provide a "substantial area of parkland" to maintain separation between Skegby and Sutton-in-Ashfield.

The SoS granted outline consent for the plans without specification of a number of dwellings, which he left to be determined as a reserved matter.

He said that this was because it was unlikely that the development "in the way shown on any of the illustrative plans submitted to the inquiry" could be achieved without "significant and harmful effects" on the character and appearance of the area, but that the development "could be accommodated into the area without undue effect on its character and appearance".