Boroughbridge housing: Developer refused permission to build 214 homes in Yorkshire market town after failing to submit key documents

In 2019 national housebuilder Barratt and David Wilson Homes was granted outline planning permission to build 450 houses on land at Stump Cross in Boroughbridge.

They split the development into two phases and received reserved matters approval for phase 1 in February 2022 that dealt with access, layout and appearance of the first batch of properties.

However, in an unusual case, the developer submitted a reserved matters application for phase 2 but only included details of access within the site.

Council planning officer Kate Broadbank said at the meeting this afternoon that despite the developer agreeing to submit further information about how the scheme would look, where the open spaces would be and which houses would be affordable, they did not come.

Ms Broadbank said because it has now been more than three years since outline permission was granted without the submission of a full reserved matters application, phase 2 of the development cannot be taken forward.

Conservative councillor for Boroughbridge Robert Windass said it “beggars belief” that the documents were not submitted. He said:

“I’m totally and utterly surprised they have not engaged with us as they did last time [with phase 1] when we came to a very amicable conclusion”.

In response, Ms Broadbank said “we were surprised as well”. She added: “They’ve had plenty of opportunity to engage with us, we’ve had various meetings and they kept saying, ‘it will be coming it will be coming’, and it’s got to the point where enough is enough”.

There was no representative from the developer at the meeting. Council planning manager Nick Turpin said: “This goes out on YouTube so they can listen in”.

He added: “I’m sure they will come round the table to discuss this proposal and do better consultation when they get to that stage of developing their plans. If it’s done in a similiar mindset to phase 1 then hopefully they’ve got a chance of approval further down the line”.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has approached Barrett and David Wilson Homes for comment.