Peel loses High Court appeal over plans for 600-home development

Peel Investments (North), part of Peel L&P, has lost its legal challenge of the decision by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to dismiss two appeals for new homes in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Mr Justice Dove, of the High Court, handed down the decision today, August 2.

Peel L&P’s Broadoak development in Worsley seeks to use an area of non-greenbelt land for a range of new family homes, new public green spaces and a site for a new primary school.

The company says the scheme would also help boost tourism with a new marina on the Bridgewater Canal and provide Worsley’s first affordable homes in a generation.

The agreed facts of the case included:

• Salford’s housing land supply of 13 years being almost entirely comprised of private city centre apartments, with an agreed deficiency in respect of family and affordable homes;
• Ongoing delays with the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework and Salford Local Plan meaning that such needs will not otherwise be met any time soon, with individual schemes being the only way to meet such needs in the meantime;
• The proposal would contribute to those unmet needs, by proposing family homes and 30% affordable in one of very few parts of the city capable of accommodating such housing;
• The proposal conflicts with the Worsley Greenway EN2 policy, part of Salford Unitary Development Plan 2004-16, an old style development plan saved in 2009 that does not contain housing provision policies.

The grounds of challenge included that the UDP as a whole and the EN2 policy are out of date as a matter of fact, and that the consideration of housing supply for the purposes of applying the tiled balance must go beyond the numbers to consider whether the housing being provided is meeting local need.

Louise Morrissey, director of land & planning at Peel L&P, said: “The court’s decision is disappointing as it just doesn’t seem to have grappled with the issues.

Artist’s impression of the proposed Salford scheme

“The judgment will encourage local authorities to delay plan-making and focus on delivering numbers only, at the expense of making sites available for family and affordable housing.

“This is not where we expected to be, given the national imperative to get on with tackling the housing crisis. We will carefully review the judgement and consider our position.”

She added: “At the very least, the case highlights that the national rhetoric of building the right homes in the right places is not being achieved on the ground due to a focus on numbers at the expense of the actual needs of families and people requiring affordable homes.

“If the Government is serious about tackling the housing crisis it needs to tighten up on what is being delivered on the ground.”