A PLANNING inquiry to decide if 1,800 houses should be built at Dunsfold Aerodrome, ended with a bombshell that could delay Waverley’s local plan - opening the door for more speculative housing developments.

In a fresh legal twist announced at the inquiry’s concluding session, Dunsfold objectors Protect Our Waverley (POW) and Joint Parish Councils (JPC), representing eight neighbouring authorities, formally requested Communities Secretary of State (SoS) Sajid Javid ‘call in’ Waverley’s draft blueprint for development until 2032, on the grounds that the local plan inspector appointed, Jonathan Bore, “exceeded his remit”.

Mr Bore’s acceptance of Waverley’s strategic allocation of 2,600 houses at the airfield, during his six-day local plan examination in July, was seized on by Dunsfold Park and Waverley’s legal teams, as vital ammunition when they made the case that the outline application for 1,800 houses should be approved.

Battling to get the housing scheme refused, POW and JPC’s joint barrister Paul Stinchcombe QC told the inquiry in his closing submission: “Inspector Bore’s preliminary comments reveal that he has unquestionably misdirected himself in law, a matter which we forewarn may now very well result in a legal challenge to any decision to adopt the emerging local plan.”

JPC and POW lobbied successfully for the SoS to call in Waverley’s approval of Dunsfold Park’s housing plan, which resulted in the three-week appeal inquiry just held in Godalming. If the local plan call in is also approved, Sajid Javid will take the final decision again.

Dunsfold planning inquiry inspector Philip Major was handed the JPC and POW letter requesting the SoS intervene in the local plan, too, at his closing session.

“This is perhaps a unique opportunity for the SoS to give his views on how the golden thread of sustainability ought to play out in both the plan-making and decision-taking sphere,” the request concluded.

“We know of no other example where the SoS has positioned himself so as to have the opportunity to take control of his policy and definitively state how it ought to apply in circumstances where a local authority propose to meet the need for housing by allocating a site which has already been found to be inherently unsustainable.”

Responding for the Department of Communities and Local Government, a spokesman said: “The department is considering a number of planning related issues that have been raised by the Joint Parish Councils in the Waverley borough area.”

The spokesman told The Herald, the Secretary of State had been asked to call in four local plans and to date has intervened once, concerning Maldon District Council’s emerging local plan, when he appointed a new inspector.

Urging the Dunsfold Park housing scheme be approved in his final submission, airfield QC Christopher ‘Kit Kat’ Katowski said he relished any legal challenge: “There is a real sense of momentum in favour of our proposals,” he said. “Their time has come.

“The local plan examining inspector is convinced that a new village at Dunsfold Park is sound, having considered all reasonable alternatives.”

Summing up the case for Waverley, the council’s barrister Wayne Beglan said: “The proposal satisfies each of the three elements of sustainability. It will make a substantial contribution to the council’s housing land supply over the next five years, but more importantly it will provide significant levels of affordable housing, as well as making provision for accommodation specifically for older people.”

Mr Bore advised at Waverley’s local plan examination hearings in July, that the housing target for the borough should increase from 519 to 590 houses per annum until 2032 to meet objectively assessed need.

The higher figure also includes Waverley’s requirement to take 50 per cent of Woking’s unmet need. Mr Bore said it was the “least constrained” authority to make up the numbers between Woking, Guildford and Waverley.

If Dunsfold Park is not accepted as a strategic site for 2,600 houses, Waverley will now need to find alternative sites for up to 4,000 houses, which will mean building on greenfield sites.

Waverley is currently conducting a green belt review to identify more sites for housing.

Noting the need for more greenfield sites, Mr Stinchcombe said in this closing submission for JPC and POW: “Alongside the urban extensions advocated as the more sustainable alternative to Dunsfold Park, there are countless smaller sites, with willing landowners, on the edge of towns and villages.

“It is noteworthy that the request for a more thorough green belt review to find those sites comes from the parish councils themselves, not from the usual suspects - house builders.”

Warning removing Dunsfold Park could result in a planning ‘free for all’, Guildford and Waverley Friends of the Earth planning expert Kathy Smyth said: “The local plan inspector has already indicated that Waverley will be expected to take Woking’s shortfall of 1,350 additional housing units over the plan period. This wasn’t anticipated.

“If Dunsfold Park is removed as strategic allocation for 2,600 units, the number of new houses which need to be redistributed across the borough shoots up to a fraction under 4,000.

“That means many more sites for new houses will have to be found in all the towns and larger villages including on greenfield sites around Godalming, Milford and Witley which are in the green belt.

“Removal of Dunsfold Park as a strategic site will also have the highly undesirable effect of plunging the entire local plan process into a prolonged period of uncertainty, which is likely to result in the sort of planning free for all we have seen in Cranleigh in recent years, repeated across the entire borough.”