Letter: 'Incredibly sad and very costly decision'

Incredibly and very disappointingly the committee overturned the officer’s recommendation and refused the application. 

The councillors argued that the open space in Dyson Drive was too valuable to lose although little reference was made to the five acres of open space just 100m away off Chaundler Road. 

Much reference was made to the council’s current Open Space Assessment which states that there is a shortfall in St Bartholomew Ward. That may be the case when looking at an area stretching from the Andover Road to Winnall and Junction 9 on the M3 however in Abbotts Barton, there is a lot of open space, both formal and informal. 

The eight houses wouldn’t have used up all the land which isn’t large enough to have a formal football pitch so it could still have been used for informal play. The homes would have provided excellent accommodation for possibly 30+ people. 

Contributors to your paper often criticise “greedy” developers for building on large gardens yet these planning applications invariably receive approval yet when the council looks to build desperately needed affordable homes on its own land the application gets refused. 

I strongly argued back in 2012 that the council needed to find enough land to be able to build maybe 1,000 homes. Although I have continued to argue for this, to date my idea hasn’t received traction although both Paula Ferguson (previous Housing Cabinet Member) and Cllr Westwood, the current incumbent both endorsed my idea. 

This incredibly sad and very costly decision (probably over £100k costs for the failed application) needs to be looked at very critically. 

Cllr Westwood must consider very seriously appealing the refusal as an inspector will almost certainly approve the homes. 

Ian Tait,
Romsey Road, 
Winchester

Editor's note: By law, councillors voting on planning applications are not allowed to be whipped or expected to follow a party line.

When the Dyson Drive application came to a vote, the Conservative Councillors on the Planning Committee and the Green Party Councillor voted against. The Liberal Democrats split with three votes in favour and three against. As a result, the Dyson Drive application was refused.

If both Conservative Councillors had voted to give planning permission, then the application would have been approved by 5 votes to 4.

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