We are moving, slowly, towards the business end. Its all going to get technical. Very technical. Not least as SODC has just managed to lose to two planning appeals this week. One was on a site at Wallingford, the other was at Chinnor. Developers will be lighting cigars with fifty pound notes. Thinking that what is bad news for the good people of Wallingford and Chinnor will be bad news for everyone in South Oxfordshire.
However, there is no inevitability about planning decisions. Rule One: each planning decision must be judged on its own merits.
Even when there is no 5 Year Supply of Housing Land (there’s technical for you), this does not mean that granting permission for housing is a foregone conclusion.
Today an Inspector issued a decision on a Green Gap site in Cheshire. He concluded that it was more important to preserve the green gap along with best and most versatile agricultural land along with character and amenity of the area rather than allow a rounding error of new houses that serve only to enrich speculative developers.
We’re shortly to see what SODC is really made of.