Case Study

Arcadian Estates has represented the landowners of a 20 acre edge of town site since 2000. Whilst the land was located within a greenbelt area, it appeared ideal for housing, and made a logical urban extension, with the High Street only a few hundred meters away. Arcadian Estates negotiated an Option Agreement with a national housebuilding company in 2001. Following the Rogers Report, Planning Policy Guidance 3 (PPG3) was introduced, which steered councils away from using spacious greenfield sites for housing, and encouraged them to used high density brownfield sites in preference. The timing was not right for us, and the Option Agreement subsequently expired after 10 years.

When the current National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published in 2012, it looked like there was a new window of opportunity, as the local authority did not have a five-year housing supply. Having watched several test cases at Appeal, it became clear that the lack of five-year supply arguments would not help greenbelt sites. We had to think again, and decided to promote the site through the local plan process, and hope that it would be released from greenbelt. After long negotiations with several different companies, Arcadian Estates helped the landowners enter into a Planning Promotion Agreement with a specialist land promoter in 2015. The site had questionable access, and the promoter purchased an existing dwelling to create a new access off an adopted estate road. Partly due to the merits of the site, and partly due to the careful political and planning negotiations by the promoter, the site has been included in the local council’s new Local Plan, and was released from greenbelt in July 2017. The now allocated housing site is undergoing an outline planning application for 250 houses, and is expected to be sold to the housebuilding industry in early 2018 by competitive tender.