New Forest National Park Authority: Our recent run of appeal successes continues with an appeal won for a plot split in Lyndhurst in the New Forest.

Planning permission was refused by the New Forest National Park Authority planning committee against the advice of their planning officer’s. Our client was recommended to use Pure Town Planning to appeal the decision. We were successfully able to persuade the Inspector that, contrary to the views of the committee, that the proposal would not harm the character of the locality and more importantly would not set a dangerous precedent for more development.

Lyndhurst appeal won planning consultant Hampshire
Proposed street scene – Image: Concept Design and Planning

The appeal was made more tricky by the timing of the West Berkshire District Council and Reading Borough Council judicial review decision which struck down the Governments 10-unit threshold for affordable housing and other tariff-based contributions (read our post here). The application had been determined prior to the judgement and hence had been exempted from all planning obligations contributions including affordable housing. The Authority highlighted to the Inspector in the course of the appeal that in light of the judgement various contributions would now be required including some £40,000 towards affordable housing. We quickly worked with the client and the architect Concept Design and Planning to produce a viability report which demonstrated that the proposal could not afford to contribute towards affordable housing and remain viable. The Inspector accepted this and agreed the affordable housing contribution ought not to be paid.

If you have recently had planning refused, then why not speak to Pure Town Planning about appealing the decision.

Just by way of a quick reminder: the Government is challenging the West Berks and Reading judgement in the Court of Appeal and we await the outcome – unfortunately we just don’t know how long until the Court of Appeal rules.