The communities secretary has approved plans for 203 homes at Newton Abbot in Devon after concluding that the development would be in line with local planning policies, despite the local authority's claim to the contrary and its ability to demonstrate a five year housing land supply.

Developer Linden Homes had appealed against the decision of Teignbridge District Council to refuse planning permission for the scheme.

According to a planning inspector’s report, the council argued that the appeal "raises a simple question: Should planning permission be granted for a development that the local planning authority consider unacceptable when judged against a supplementary planning document (SPD) required by a specific local plan policy, and formulated after public engagement? The answer is very simple: No".

The council said it was "important to note that there is no suggestion that the local plan is not up-to-date and neither is there any suggestion that the council cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites. As a consequence, the proposal must be dealt with on the basis of the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise".

The council argued that the local plan policy which allocated the site for development required that a "comprehensive landscape and design-led masterplan" be produced for any development proposals coming forward but "that produced by the appellant does not accord with the requirements [of the local plan]". It was also not in line with policies within the SPD, the council argued.

But a decision letter said that Sajid Javid considered that the scheme "is in accordance with [the policies] of the development plan, and is in accordance with the development plan overall".

The letter said that Javid gave "substantial weight to the public benefits of securing housing, in line with the Policy NA2 allocation, even in the presence of a healthy housing land supply".

The letter said that Javid weighed the "less than substantial" impact to the significance of Church Path - a non-designated heritage asset - and the "impact on the significance of the Parish Church of All Saints and Whitehill House, to which he affords substantial weight".

But he concluded that the benefits of the proposal "outweigh its negative impacts".

The letter said that Javid agreed with the inspector that there was "no departure from the requirements of paragraph 7.14 of the Whitehill, Newton Abbot (NA2) Development Framework Plan Supplementary Planning Document and nothing in the design that brings it into conflict with [local plan policy] or the approach of the National Planning Policy Framework".

Source: Planning Resource