Treasured landscapes across the country could be blighted by housing estates if a developer wins a test case on the importance of visual impact, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
The case relates to a plan for 112 homes in the Slad Valley in Stroud, Gloucestershire, which was made famous in Laurie Lee’s memoir Cider with Rosie.
Two years before Lee died in 1997, he helped to lead a campaign to prevent development on the fields, which are just outside the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
His widow, Kathy Lee, and daughter, Jessy Lee, have joined the campaign against the plans by Gladman Developments, which specialises in using loopholes in the government’s planning reforms to build on greenfield sites.
In July a planning inspector rejected the plan, stating: “The damage to the quality of the landscape would not comply with the provisions of the national planning policy framework, which seek to recognise the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside.”
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Gladman Developments is now challenging that decision in the High Court, arguing that the inspector gave undue weight to the adverse impact of the houses on views of the landscape. In a claim document it says that the inspector failed to consider whether the development accorded with planning policies “read as a whole”.
Under the national planning policy framework, which the government introduced in 2012 to try to double the rate of house building to more than 200,000 a year, there is a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”. This applies in areas, such as Stroud, where the council is deemed to have failed to identify a five-year supply of sites for housing.
Gladman argues that the law requires developments to be approved unless the adverse impacts “significantly and demonstrably” outweigh the benefits.
Paul Miner, senior planning officer for the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “Gladman’s case, if it succeeded, would make it much more difficult in future to refuse a planning application on grounds of harm to landscape.
“A precedent would be set whereby . . . the council would have to justify refusal against all policies in the development plan, as opposed to just the ones it judged to be relevant.”
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On its website, Gladman describes itself as being a “land promoter obsessed with winning consents”.
A letter sent by Gladman to landowners in another area advised them to “move quickly whilst the local authority is vulnerable”.