A PUBLIC inquiry is set to be held following Thurrock Council’s refusal of plans to build 750 new homes on green belt reports the Local Democracy Reporter.
An appeal has been lodged with the planning inspectorate in January over a planning application to build the homes on Thurrock Airfield at Kings Farm, adjacent to the A128 between Orsett and Bulphan.
The plans were rejected by the planning committee in July last year, when Kevin Leigh, speaking on behalf Grasslands Ltd, criticised Thurrock Council over its lack of a viable local plan.
A public inquiry, which is expected to last 13 days will begin on Tuesday, July 1 in the council chamber at Thurrock Town Hall.
Residents who wish to make representations have until March 7 to lodge their views.
The council received 85 letters objecting to the application, including from Dunton Community Forum.
The planning committee gave ten reasons for refusal including the impact on the green belt, potential traffic impact, town centre impact due to proposed retail along with proposed employment being unsuitable in this location.
Other refusal reasons consisted of lack of Section 106 agreement, impact upon the Thames Estuary Special Protection Area, noise impact on future occupiers and insufficient information on climate change.
At the planning meeting in July Mr Leigh angered councillors, telling them the Government’s stated intention to change planning laws in order to build more homes would affect their ability to protect green belt.
He said: “You are massively out of date and you are hugely behind on providing housing. The plan in itself doesn’t provide enough housing for you to catch up to what this new government says is going to be 300,000 houses per year.
“It may be that orthodox planning encourages people to think green belt is immutable but that is going to change. It probably should have changed a long time ago and we wouldn’t be in the housing crisis that we’re in. You cannot protect every blade of grass.”
