In the clip below, Tim House, the property owner overlooking the covenanted land where Cala Homes want to build 180 properties, tells Waverley’s Planners in 2021 why it should refuse the scheme in Station Lane.
Cala Homes told us to “ think again” if it wants to build at Milford Golf Course.
A judge has now given leave to Mr & Mrs House to challenge the decisions of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and ‘Your Waverley’ in the High Court. This move could threaten Waverley’s Local Plan Part 2.
It’s the council’s blueprint for future development in the borough.
Here’s our earlier post: You couldn’t ’t make it up. Waverley’s Local Plan Part 2 is now threatened.
Mr House – a top London lawyer – warned the council and the developer that he would seek to exercise a covenant on the land, which precluded it from such a large-scale and dense development. Now he intends to go much further and attempt to prove the crucial planning document is not legally sound. This move could cost Waverley ratepayers tens of thousands of pounds in legal fees.
His grounds for the challenge related to how the Government Planning Inspector who examined the Plan considered its relationship with Local Plan Part One and the conclusions he came to for development at Milford golf course regarding the covenant. So Waverley is in the hot seat, and so is the Secretary of State for levelling up housing and communities—Micheal Gove, who will be a co-defendant with Waverley.
Well said Mr House. Why have Waverley Borough Council and the planning department NOT picked up on these valid points? Regulations are in place for a reason. It seems to me that developers have no respect for rules or in fact for the future residents. It appears that their only interest is profit.
I anticipate Mr Gove will agree with Mr House rather than WBC and the roof will fall in on WBC.
The Dept of Levelling Up will not have egg thrown in the direction of the face. It will deflect it.
WBC has an impossible problem. Another legal bill, a broken LP2, Dept of Levelling Up preparing for the ultimate sanction.
End Game
MeaninglessMud
We now have “planning by surrender” whereby to avoid appeals and challenges to their five-year supply of housing land, local planning authorities may choose to grant planning permission for more housing than is sustainable. Whereas judicious local plans establish housing sustainability and how to mitigate the negative effects upon the existing community.
Justifiable not in my back yard (NIMBY) emerges where communities are disengaged from the planning process by the Local Planning Authority, developments are not well designed, and the infrastructure is not in place. It is in the public interest that potentially dysfunctional planning is subject to legal scrutiny.
Unless mistaken Secretary of State’s can choose to withdraw.