Fifty-home village plan off the table

A stalled plan to build 50 houses at a Herefordshire village is now formally off the table.

Kodiak Land of Cheshire, which describes itself as a land promoter rather than a housebuilder, applied in March 2018 for outline permission to build 32 market-sale and 18 affordable homes on a three-hectare site off Burtonwood west of Weobley.

A planning officer’s report to a Herefordshire Council planning committee meeting in December 2018 recommended approving the permission, so long as a so-called section 106 obligation was placed on the developer to provide facilities for the wider community.

However, the meeting put off a decision at the request of the parish council to give it time to consider late amendments from the developer. It appears not to have been brought back before any subsequent planning meeting.

A letter to the developer in June this year said the council could not progress the bid due to its legal obligation to prevent increased water pollution in the river Lugg catchment.

The Weobley neighbourhood plan has also been published in the interim, putting the field outside the village’s boundary, the letter pointed out. The council is also now able to demonstrate a five-year supply of development land, it added.

Meanwhile, Kodiak Land’s website and published phone number both appear to have been discontinued.

A notice sent by Herefordshire Council to the company this week says its application is now “disposed of, as over six months have elapsed since the expiry date of the application, no contact has been made since December 2019, and no appeal has been lodged with the Secretary of State against the Council’s failure to determine the application”.