You can simply say you are for or against the proposal, or qualify your approval of it if certain conditions are met.
There are five basic reasons to be in favour of the proposal.
1. It will enrich the landowner involved, who is coincidentally the Vice Chair of the Parish Council;
2. It will enrich the developers;
3. It will provide employment for construction workers for the 18-24 months during which the site is being landscaped and the houses put up;
4. It will increase the population of the village, currently about 350, by some 50-100 souls;
5. It may provide some measure of affordable housing in Langham.
If you broadly approve of the scheme but have reservations, the questionnaire offers the following options:
1. You need reassurance about safe entry to and exit from the development;
2. You would like to see a reduction in the number of houses proposed or a guarantee that the number would not increase from 35;
3. You would like a proportion of the homes to be affordable;
4. You would like to see ‘legal protection to ensure that the homes cannot be used as second or holiday homes (if we think this could be possible)’;
5. You have other concerns.
Safe entry to and exit from the development
Access to the site must be made either from North Street or Binham Road. In either event, most of this extra traffic will use the crossroads by the church. The line of sight when emerging there from North Street is bad enough, but coming the other way, from Field Dalling Road, it is positively dangerous: so dangerous in fact that drivers must nose forward into Binham Road in order to see what’s coming.
An exit into Binham Road would also be dangerous, given the way the road curves, even if the existing and historic (it was once the village school) Parish Room were to be demolished; Lanpro have mooted providing a new village hall.
Prompted by a previous planning application for the same piece of land, the Highways Department at Norfolk County Council voiced grave concerns about the implications for road safety.
They also commented that the village is in need of more footways. Walking east from the Cockthorpe road, one can follow for a while the safe footway provided during construction of the St Mary’s estate, but at Astley Cottage this runs out and one must cross the road, again with a poor line of sight, to a narrow footway which becomes even narrower when approaching the crossroads. Having crossed over and with the church on one’s right, this narrow footway soon ends. After that, almost all the way to the Blakeney road, one must walk in the carriageway – which is often obstructed by parked vehicles.
Most of the length of North Street is served by a safe footway on its east side, but in Field Dalling Road there is no footway at all.
Fewer houses
Reduction in the number of homes below a certain point, particularly if some of them are to be designated as affordable, may make any development uneconomic. Developers fiercely resist such a reduction. However, it is possible that the figure of 35 dwellings has been put forward with the intention of appearing to compromise later by settling for fewer, a suspicion given credence by the fact that the number proposed in 2019 was only 27, four of which were to have been flats.
Affordable homes
The definition of ‘affordable’ is elastic and is discussed in this BBC article from 2016. In rough terms, an affordable home is sold at something like 80% of the market value. Developers may be required by district councils to include a number of such properties in their plans, but of course each one reduces the profitability of the development, so there is much negotiation about this before full planning consent is given.
Assuming that the new market-rate houses proposed for Langham are comparable to those on the St Mary’s estate, albeit with much smaller gardens, the affordable homes would cost something in the region of £400,000.
Using the basic mortgage calculator found here, and assuming the purchasers can supply a £50,000 deposit, and assuming the current mortgage rate of 4.5%, they will need to find £1945 a month to service a £350,000 repayment mortgage. Over the full term they will pay £583,398, which includes interest of £233,398. These are of course approximate figures. The historic bank rate since the seventeenth century has been about 5%. Given the current rate of inflation, we could soon see it go considerably higher than that.
Restrictions on occupation
In its questionnaire the Parish Council itself expresses doubt as to whether covenants restricting the occupation of these houses will be enforceable, a doubt we can only endorse. In any case, such covenants would reduce the value of the houses and make the whole scheme less financially viable.
In legal circles it is known that restrictive covenants can be and are breached all the time. If such breaches remain uncontested at law, the covenants eventually become null and void.
As to the designation of a country property as a second home, it is common practice for someone living in, say, London to designate the London house as the second home and the country property as the primary residence, neatly circumventing whatever impositions a local authority seeks to make.
Other concerns
These are many and various. The scheme if built would run a coach and horses through numerous NNDC core strategy policies, especially concerning development in the countryside and in ‘small growth villages’, of which Langham is a prime example.
If you want to look these policies up on the NNDC website, they are as follows:
SS 4: Environment
HO 1: Dwelling Mix and Type
EN 9: Biodiversity & Geology
EN 10: Development and Flood Risk
CT 1: Open Space Designations
CT 6: Parking Provision
In brief, this is a greenfield site lying within both the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Langham Conservation Area. Building over it will irreversibly change the character of the village and put unwonted pressure on local infrastructure, especially the road system.
For these reasons alone the proposal is highly unsuitable and, we submit, without merit.
The site
Image credit: Gaynor Pannier
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