Planning

In December the High Court quashed the development decision made by the Secretary of State's planning inspector; the court agreed with the Parish Council's case that the decision was legally flawed.

The court's decision has triggered a hearing by a new inspector when the appeal against non-decision by RCC will again be heard. This appeal will be held on the 28th May at Catmose.

RCC has belatedly sent letters to everyone who commented on the case at the last appeal, reminding them that previous representations will again be entered in evidence; the way is also open for new comments. All comments, whether new or updated, can be made online through the planning inspector's website at https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk . Comments must be made by 1st May, and must contain the appeal reference which is APP/A2470/W/23/3323746.

A broad selection of previous comments may be found on the RCC website

The Parish Council encourages all members of the community to lodge their comments, for or against the proposed development, before the 1st May.

Following the quashing on legal grounds of the planning permission for up to thirty houses on Brooke Road, Braunston, the Parish Council has some financial sorting out to do. Following some hard negotiations with the Secretary of State we have recovered £14,000 of our costs, and we are now waiting for a final invoice from the legal team. Once we have all the figures in front of us we will be able to return a proportion of the amount pledged to those people who sponsored the legal challenge, sometime in the New Year.
Once again, thanks to all for your support.

Chris Bichard

On 4th Dec 2024, the High Court quashed the Planning Inspectorate's decision to allow the planning application for up to thirty houses on Brooke Rd. The High Court agreed that the grounds filed by our counsel were valid, and therefore the appeal was overturned.

This in effect puts the situation back to the position before the appeal, and there will therefore be another hearing to re-determine the appeal decision.

The High Court decision is below.

Here are the relevant legal documents that relate to the application, the appeal , and the challenge to the appeal. They are listed with the most recent documents first.

The original planning application can be found on the RCC website.

The original planning application can be found on the RCC website.

To view local planning applications click on the link below which will open a new page with the planning application enquiry form on the Rutland County Council web site.

When the link opens, you can use various criteria to search for an application. If you know the application reference then you can just put that in the search box on the default 'Simple' search tab. If you don't, then you can use various search criteria on the 'Advanced' search tab, but probably the easiest way is to use the 'Map' tab. You can then zoom in and any applications made in the last six months will be highlighted in red. Click on the location and summary details will appear, with a link to view full details.

Use the 'Documents' tab to see plans and descriptions of the proposal, and any comments from the PC, other council departments, and members of the public.

If you wish to comment on the application, click on the 'Comments' tab and have your say.

Several people have recently expressed confusion over the number of planning applications which are outside the Local Development Plan, but nevertheless arrive at the Planning Committee. This situation arose after RCC withdrew its controversial revision to the Local Plan last year, and they cite that Rutland can no longer demonstrate the required five year housing supply.

To clarify its thinking, RCC has issued an interim statement for consultation, which seeks to put in place rules for planning until the five year supply target is met, or a revised Local Plan is approved (probably in 2024): this can be seen here.

Last week Braunston Parish Council responded to the consultation, whilst asking for more clarity on several issues:
What are the five year housing supply target numbers; how are they calculated and where can we find them on the RCC website.
What is the County's actual five year housing supply? The RCC is obliged to keep an up to date record, but we cannot discover it on the website.
Without this information we cannot verify that we are failing to meet the required numbers, or understand what has been omitted from the numbers; for example, are the Ryhall development numbers included within Rutland or South Kesteven; are the Bellway (Braunston Rd) numbers included, are the Brooke Rd allotment numbers included?
Our local government should make these aspects of the planning process clear and transparent.

We look forward to receiving some clarification.