It may not be Bonfire Night for the court challenge against Waverley’s Masterplan… but it could be fireworks.
Portfolio holder for Planning Cllr Liz Townsend announced that the date for the high court legal challenge against Waverley Borough Council’s 11,000 home masterplan has been set for November 7 and 8.
Will’ Your Waverley’s Local Plan Part 2 go up in smoke at the Royal Courts of Justice in London when it is challenged by Mlford Barrister Tim House and his wife, Isobel?
Not if Waverley’s and the Government’s barristers and planning experts have anything to do with it!
The housing blueprint had previously been described as…
“a step in the right direction” by planning inspectors but was still criticised for the “geographically contained” spread of development sites.
The legal challenge is based on the relationship between the two parts of the local plan, specifically 180 homes earmarked for land in Milford, where Mr & Mrs House come into the picture.
The couple live close to the proposed development at Milford Golf Course. Mr House fought when planning consent was given, and he is not giving up.
Mr House claims the council’s approach is an “affront to common sense”. But here’s the twist: his challenge isn’t just about the golf course that his home overlooks, which is covered by a legal covenant, but the legality of the entire Local Plan—a challenge which sent shock waves through Waverley Towers.
Mr House says he’s been raising the alarm about Waverley’s Local Plan since 2017, particularly its reliance on Milford golf course as a strategic housing site to meet the council’s spiralling government target. A recent row in nearby Oxshott landed a couple there with a £400,000+ legal bull after the courts upheld a bid by neighbours to enforce a 1938 covenant preventing more than one home on a controversial site.
A historic covenant from 1929, when a larger piece of land was split up, states Mr. and Mrs. House cannot build a greater housing density on their pocket of land than at the golf course, and vice versa.
The council has repeatedly claimed this covenant can be overcome as it seeks to deliver on the Government’s diktat to build 590 homes per year up to 2032 in the borough – but according to Mr House, has never shared any sound legal opinion confirming this to be the case.
If the challenge is successful, the council’s housing bible would need to be redrawn, a process that could take years.
Hear from the Milford man challenging Waverley &’s LP2 in the High Court.
Of course
If WBC goes bankrupt it will get extremely interesting.
Plus.
Gove is about to pounce with his Super Planning Team.
You couldn’t make it up.
If this makes it to Court I will be extremely surprised.
MeaninglessMud
It is going to court…that is what the article is about…
My understanding is the legal challenge is much more fundamental than just Milford Golf Course. I believe a very simplified summary is to question whether the Inspector was right to find that the second part of the plan did not need to make alternative housing allocation to establish a 5 year housing land supply and/or in light of the slow progress of sites coming forward as allocated in Local Plan Part 1 (Dunsfold, Milford Golf Course etc).
I remember watching the examination and the audible shocked intake of breath when the Council stated that the plan was not trying to deliver allocation to meet the housing supply.