Revised Lympstone housing development gets the nod

A redrawn plan for a housing scheme in an East Devon village has been approved after the developer made a range of tweaks to the proposals.

A redrawn plan for a housing scheme in an East Devon village has been approved after the developer made a range of tweaks to the proposals.

The site, on land south of Meeting Lane in Lympstone, had been brought before planners in August, but the proposed scheme for 42 homes was refused.

Now developer 3 West has made a series of changes to the scheme, leading it to be approved by planners.

The new application was submitted as an outline one, meaning that East Devon District Council’s planning committee (Tuesday 19 November) was essentially only deciding on the principal of putting homes in this location.

More detailed aspects, such as issues surrounding surface water drainage, environmental concerns and the design of the homes, will be decided when a subsequent ‘reserved matters’ application is submitted.

One of the main objections to the previous application related to one of the road accesses to the site from Strawberry Hill, but this has now been removed, making the entrance at Meeting Lane the only way into the site.

There had also been concern about the lack of so-called ‘pepper-potting’ of social housing on the site, meaning that more expensive homes were bunched together away from more affordable ones, and objections based on the site being in an unsustainable location.

However, since the original scheme was refused, East Devon’s strategic planning committee has allocated the site as one that is suitable for development in the emerging local plan, changing how the planning committee viewed the new application.

The siting of affordable homes in the scheme will be decided when the reserved matters application is submitted by the developer, and so could not be used as a reason for refusal at this stage.

Nick Yeo, a director at 3 West, which is based in Woodbury, thanked East Devon’s planning officers for their support with the scheme, and for recommending it for approval.

“Members will recall a full application was brought to the committee and that was refused permission, so we have advised East Devon of our intention to have that decision reviewed by the planning inspectorate,” he said.

Mr Yeo emphasised that East Devon only had 4.15 years of housing land supply, and needed to have five in order to be compliant with government planning targets.

“If this application is approved, we will submit our reserved matters application in early 2025 and have the homes completed in early 2027, which would make a contribution to the council’s housing land supply,” he said.

He added that the site would have 14 affordable homes on it – most of which would be social rented – and that £292,000 would be paid to the council to help fund more affordable homes elsewhere in the district.

Councillor Geoff Jung (Liberal Democrat, Woodbury and Lympstone) said he had not supported the previous scheme, but that his concerns had been overcome since.

“I’m still not convinced with the view from Devon’s highways department that the turning from the A376 into Meeting Lane is safe, but they are the experts and so we have to take their word for it,” he said.

“The developer has done what they have been asked to do in terms of amendments, so I reluctantly support this scheme.”

However, Councillor Eileen Wragg (Liberal Democrat, Exmouth Town) questioned the highways department’s view of the Meeting Lane access.

“The highways authority (Devon County Council) doesn’t consider the risk to be severe enough to justify refusal for planning permission, but I’ve heard this a number of times,” she said.

“What is ‘severe’ risk? I was a county councillor and left in 2017, but as far as I know, ’severe’ is still being tested as people can’t make up their minds as to what constitutes severe.

“I have real concerns about the access point as the A376 is already bad enough without another entry point onto it.”

However, the planning committee voted in favour of approving the scheme.