The Framework sets out development principles for a 47 hectare area around Houghton and Wyton following the identification of the area as a key growth location in the District Council's Core Strategy. The District Council approved the document in 2011 as "planning guidance to inform council policy and future decisions on potential development applications".
Houghton and Wyton Parish Council subsequently brought a judicial review challenge against the District Council, claiming that the Framework was unlawful on two grounds.
The High Court judge rejected the Parish Council's first ground that the document constituted an allocation of land for development and therefore should have been prepared as a development plan document. However, the Parish Council was successful with its second ground of challenge that the document should have been prepared as a supplementary planning document.
The judge gave the District Council leave to appeal his judgment as he said it was a "highly complex" case and that it would potentially have "wide ranging implications on local government’s ability to prepare guidance and advice".
“The principle of development in this area is already set in our adopted Core Strategy and the District Council is expecting a planning application at any time," said the District Council's managing director Malcolm Sharp. "Obviously it is disappointing that, on a complex point of procedural law, our efforts to provide positive planning guidance for the established growth area to the west of St Ives have been undermined".
"However, we are considering an appeal as we are of the view that the judgment undermines our ability to plan effectively and positively for our community – and has potentially wide ranging implications for other authorities," Sharp said.
"We have tried very hard as a District Council to put guidance in place that would help us to deliver a much needed, high quality and well designed new residential development, and would secure a large informal country park recreation area in the Ouse Valley for the use and enjoyment of future generations of children and families from St Ives, Houghton and Wyton and the wider area,” he added.
