Barwood Land entered in an agreement with the owners of approximately 59 acres of greenfield land at Red House Farm in 2012 and set about devising a planning strategy to realise the development potential of the site.
The strategy involved a dual process of promoting parts of the site to the Local Plan and at the same time submitting planning application(s) in anticipation that these may be rejected by the council and therefore to ensure that the case for appealing a refusal is optimised.
A planning application for an initial phase of development comprising 250 dwellings was submitted to ESBC in 2012. The council had not identified the land as a proposed allocation in its emerging local plan and so refused the application. Barwood Land immediately lodged a planning appeal and following public enquiry the appeal was recovered by Secretary of State for his determination. In November 2013 Secretary of State allowed the appeal and granted consent. The Inspector also granted a partial award of costs against the council for ignoring national planning policy in reaching its decision its decision to refuse the application.
The site was prepared for sale and subsequently marketed by Hawksmoor. Following an informal tender process, a joint offer from Strata Homes and Davidsons was accepted and the site was sold subject to grant of Reserved Matters consent. Reserved Matters consent was obtained and the sale went unconditional in 2016.
