A second attempt to build 55 houses on a greenfield site on the southern edge of Shaftesbury has been controversially lodged with North Dorset District Council by the same investment company who applied three years ago, writes Richard Thomas.
The company – Shaftesbury LVA, with interests in Jersey – has been set up and is owned by Robert Tizzard, brother of Dorset racehorse trainer Colin Tizzard, with James Huckerby.
Mr Tizzard, of Milborne Port, applied for planning permission on the same C13 site in 2015 but withdrew the application two years later after a flood of objections. His latest application was submitted to NDDC at the end of April.
He and his agent, Nicole Stacey of PCL Planning, Honiton, presented their plans to Shaftesbury Town Council on 29 May and are to repeat the exercise with Melbury Abbas & Cann parish council.
They are hopeful of getting permission for the housing on the eight-acre site, including some affordable housing, despite the fact it is outside the current settlement boundary and not in the existing Local Plan. This is because, as they told Shaftesbury council this week, NDDC no longer has a five-year housing land supply and Whitehall is asking councils to approve the building of a lot more houses.
This means, they claimed, existing settlement boundaries no longer apply in North Dorset while NDDC reviews its Local Plan for the area.
But both developer and agent met strong opposition from town councillors who criticised the plan as overdevelopment in a town that is already taking more than its share of housing for the district and does not have the infrastructure to support existing housing development.
Others criticised the design of the development and the fact there were no shops included.
The application is available to view online at NDDC’s planning portal under reference number 2/2018/0602/OUT.
1 Comment
I object strongly to the above plans to build any homes on this greenfield site. There is a huge amount of housing newly built, currently under construction and planned in Shaftesbury – far more than the limited infrastructure can cope with. Green spaces are extremely important to preserve, both for pleasure and climatic conditions including climate change. It is a welll known fact that water, which we usually have in abundance, must have sufficient drainage to avoid flooding. Conversely in times of drought open ground is equally critical. Thank believe people are just building to line their pockets with no thought as to the effects on our beautiful Saxon Hilltop Town, now approached through a modern concrete jungle, and it’s residents. It is losing its uniqueness. The existing infrastructure offers insufficient medical support, insufficient parking, limited, and for some children, insufficient school places.
I object in the strongest terms to this building proposal.