Cotswolds News

Councillors ‘appalled’ at Rissington judgement

10:18am Thursday 11th March 2010

ANGRY parish councillors will write to Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown in protest at the approval of a development set to double the size of Upper Rissington.

Robin Leach, chairman of Little Rissington Parish Council, told the Journal he and his committee members were “appalled” by the Planning Inspectorate’s decision to grant an appeal for 368 homes to be built at a former RAF base.

He said: “No consideration apparently has been given to the surrounding area which is very rural. We are not against improvements being made there but it is the density that frightens us and the extra traffic that it will generate.”

The application from Reland (Rissington) Ltd was refused by Cotswold District Council, which said such a large development in a remote rural area was “unsustainable”, went against planning strategy and would be “harmful” to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Inspector Elizabeth Fieldhouse said the arguments for the case were “finely balanced” but a shortage of development land and a need for affordable housing outweighed a lack of policy compliance.

Mr Clifton-Brown said the only way to overturn the decision was through a Judicial Review but he thought this would be unlikely.

“This has been through the democratic process,” he said.

“Other than some huge factual error having been made, I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about it now.

“We’ve just got to look at the judgement and see how it’s going to work because it’s a big development. There’s a lot of work to be done by the community.”

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