Case Studies

The land around Kempston Hardwick is located in Bedford Borough. Varsity Town Planning act for O&H Land on their Marston Vale Estate in Bedfordshire. This comprises land within Central Bedfordshire Council, now largely allocated for new settlements and village extensions, and also land in Bedford Borough.

At the Call for Sites stage we had promoted various parts of O&H’s land holdings for village extensions, small new settlements and opportunities for brownfield regeneration. We had sought to provide a menu of options as to how these could be brought forward – some for employment, some residential.

Bedford Borough Council were required to do a Local Plan review to a very strict timetable set by the Planning Inspectorate, and they came to us in 2021 with an idea for how they wanted to consider the area to the south west of Bedford. Bedford Borough Council were keen to build on the proposals that East West Rail were advancing in this area. The land that we were promoting sits alongside EWR with access to both existing and planned new stations.

BBC wanted to consider a wholescale redevelopment of this area and O&H’s land formed part of this wider new settlement, looking to come forward for somewhere in the region of 7500 homes. O&H own land adjacent to some of the possible locations for new stations where they would benefit from allocations for high density areas and they also would be bringing forward their sites for green infrastructure, to support third party applications as well as strategic highway infrastructure.

Varsity Town Planning are acting for O&H Land in seeking to secure this allocation, we are expecting to attend the examination in public, likely to be summer 2023 and will be working alongside neighbouring landowners and their teams to advance the allocation.

Sutton Courtenay is a village situated in the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire.

The Vale of White Horse District Council resolved to grant planning permission for a site owned by O&H Land just outside of the village of Sutton Courtenay (April 2016).

The application was for 93 homes on the edge of the village opposite an established village expansion site. At the time the council could not demonstrate a five-year housing land supply and the site was deemed to be sustainable.

Sutton Courtenay is a village situated in the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire.

The Vale of White Horse District Council resolved to grant planning permission for a site owned by O&H Land just outside of the village of Sutton Courtenay (April 2016).

The application was for 93 homes on the edge of the village opposite an established village expansion site. At the time the council could not demonstrate a five-year housing land supply and the site was deemed to be sustainable.

In August 2019 the application was taken back to committee with a recommendation for refusal based on Oxfordshire County Council’s objection. In the intervening years, the Oxfordshire Authorities had also signed a growth deal with the Government (March 2018) giving them leave to only demonstrate a 3-year housing land supply rather than the national target of 5 years.

The application was refused, and O&H Land made the decision to challenge this decision at appeal.

Wixam Park is a greenfield site south of Bedford which formed part of Central Bedfordshire Council’s
(CBC) Site Allocations Development Plan Document 2011. It had been identified as a potential
development site as early as 1999, having been identified as an expansion area in the Elstow New
Settlement Planning and Development Brief. Subject to a phasing restriction, the site was prevented
from coming forward before 2021.

The freehold landowners of the site, and our client, O&H Land, respected the phasing restriction and
didn’t seek to bring an application forward on this site until 2020.
Varsity Town Planning were successful in winning a competitive tender to prepare an outline
planning application at Wixam Park.  Working with the urban design team from David Lock
Associates, we prepared a pre-application for 1,200 homes and a primary school. This included
changing the use of existing farm buildings at the centre of the site, to be developed as community
buildings. VTP acted as lead consultant on the project and provided town planning services for the
preparation, submission and negotiation of the outline planning application.

We began by submitting a screening request to CBC to establish whether an Environmental Impact
Assessment would be required. It was not required in this instance, but we led a multi-disciplinary
team including expert ecologists, whose input was invaluable in developing the site with
environmental sensitivity and demonstrating Biodiversity Net Gain. The team also included
Landscape Architects, Archaeology & Heritage advisors alongside Transport Planners and Civil
Engineers.

During the course of 2020 we co-ordinated the preparation of the outline planning application and
submission to CBC in January 2021. During this process we had gone into partnership with CBC by
entering a Planning Performance Agreement.

During the consultation process, it was agreed to accommodate a wider need for a new secondary
school and the application was updated to propose 1,130 homes with land for the secondary school.
The application also included the primary school, community buildings and all the ancillary open
spaces, community and civil infrastructure that would be expected of this scale of development.
The application was successfully and quickly negotiated and we achieved resolution to grant
permission from the Development Management Committee at CBC in August 2022, approximately 9
months after submission. Section 106 negotiations continued and the application went through a
Financial Viability Assessment with planning permission being achieved in August 2023.
Varsity Town Planning have now being jointly appointed to produce the Site Wide Design Code and
Areas and Phasing Plan.

CBC Application Ref: 21/00148/OUT