Up to 60 more homes heading to East Devon

Plans for houses in Woodbury

Up to 60 more homes are set to be built in an East Devon village that has already seen more than 130 approved for construction in the past year.

Developer 3West has secured permission to build up to 60 homes on land south of Gilbrook House in Woodbury, including some affordable housing.

The scheme is an outline planning application at this stage, meaning the exact number of homes and precise details about their design will be dealt with in a subsequent application.

The approval of the scheme comes after up to 63 homes across two sites off Globe Hill were approved in Woodbury in September, and a previous scheme on farmland on the southern edge of the village given the go-ahead for up to 70 homes in November last year.

Although the parish council lodged objections to the latest plan, East Devon District Council’s planning committee voted seven to one in favour of the scheme, with four councillors abstaining.

The Gilbrook House site is currently outside the area where development is permitted in Woodbury, however, East Devon’s emerging local plan – which identifies which sites in the district are suitable for housing and employment developments – had identified the location as one that would be suitable for homes to be built on.

While the new local plan is not yet in effect, planners acknowledged that the district needed to make sure it approved enough schemes to ensure it had a five-year housing land supply, a metric by which local councils are assessed by central government.

Much of the opposition to the scheme centred on the perceived lack of safety of the pedestrian route to and from the site over the bridge in Gilbrook.

However, Devon’s highways department felt the pedestrian route was acceptable given it would be an improvement on the existing situation on that road, whereby only a white line separates cars from pedestrians.

Furthermore, a new pedestrian access connecting the development to Gilbrook Close is being proposed as part of the scheme, meaning anyone walking from the site can access Woodbury’s centre via another route.

Ken Perry, a member of Woodbury Parish Council, said the council did not support the scheme because of concerns about access to the site, both in terms of pedestrians and vehicles.

“We note the highways’ department’s support for this scheme but on this occasion we think they are badly wrong,” he said.

Mr Perry described the approach to the development via road, and suggested it would be a dangerous route to have an additional access point on.

However, Jonathan Lloyd, the agent acting for the developer, said the firm had worked on the scheme for the past three years with both East Devon District Council and Devon County Council, noting that amendments had already been made to the scheme to ensure a safe access for vehicles and pedestrians.

“As part of our design review we have completed a road safety audit,” he said.

“But we would be happy to look at concerns from the parish in relation to Gilbert Bridge; our client is committed to investigate alternatives.”

Mr Lloyd emphasises the “many community and planning benefits” of the scheme, such as public and open space, play area, activity trail and allotments.

In terms of affordable housing, the scheme will be 35 per cent affordable – equivalent to 21 homes – with the developer paying East Devon £260,622 in lieu of another 15 per cent of affordable homes.

Councillor Geoff Jung (Liberal Democrat, Woodbury and Lympstone), said he did not support the scheme initially, but given the land looked set to be included in East Devon’s emerging local plan, he had changed his mind.

“I hope many of the community benefits will be included as we need to acknowledge that if you are adding great numbers of houses it is vital that improvements are made to cope with the additional residents,” he said.

His fellow ward member, Councillor Ben Ingham (Liberal Democrat), said it was a “tremendous shame” so many houses had been allocated to Woodbury in the emerging local plan but accepted the need for the district to build more houses.

Councillor Mike Howe (Independent, Clyst Valley) emphasised that East Devon had just 4.15 years of housing land supply, and that it needed five to be in line with government guidance.

“Most of those extra houses need to come in areas outside our existing local plan,” he said.

“That means we have to ignore, to an extent, the existing local plan or else we could create ourselves a host of problems rapidly.

“And while we have highways concerns, the highways department believes the scheme is suitable, so we really have no reason to defer this decision or to refuse the scheme.”

East Devon’s development manager, Wendy Ormsby, agreed that refusing the application could be difficult.

“If members are not minded to support it, the implication is that you are looking to refuse it on the basis of the current highways proposals,” she said.

“But when Devon’s highways department says it is not only acceptable but a betterment compared to what’s there now, it would be very challenging to defend a rejection at appeal.”

Seven members of East Devon’s planning committee voted in favour of approving the scheme, with one voting against and four abstaining.