Affordable Housing - how things stand - 4th October 2007 

There are two sites under consideration:

 

(a) between Nos 52 and 54 Harlton Road on a piece of land at present in negotiation between Land Partnership and the owner, Mr David Ellis. Ten houses are proposed varying from a bungalow up to a 4 bed house. It is not possible to predict exactly when the houses will be up as they have to go through the planning procedure and they also have to have approval under what is called the Section 106 procedure which allows affordable houses to be built in green belt land.

 

(b) The other possible site is on the right of  Church Street on a piece of land between the Church Street and the Village Hall car park. The land was purchased in 1948 or 1949 by the then Rural District Council for the purposes of putting up what were then called council houses. Threats of compulsory purchase were used to induce the sale.

The houses were never put up and the land found itself put into the green belt in the early 1980s. An attempt to put some houses up in the late 1980s was rejected at a Public Enquiry in 1991. The inspector saw no reason to allow building in the green belt.

 

Parish Council has always been in favour of some more houses and this land, referred to by its old name of OSP 148, is already in the ownership of SCDC and is thus a preferred candidate. Government policy on Section 106 agreements has changed in recent years and Parish Council policy is to progress both sites as fast as possible but that is not actually very fast.

 

It took seven years to get the houses that are at the far end of High Street Great Eversden.