• A planning application for this development has been resubmitted. The original application, submitted earlier in 2021, received many objections (over 200) and the application was withdrawn. The newly submitted application includes the same plans for 5 large luxury houses, with some additional planting on site. There are many reasons why this development should not go ahead, including, and not limited to, the following; it does not address the housing needs in the area, it puts the green fields and AONB in Croyde at risk of irreversible damage, it does not comply with several policies outlined in the newly adopted Neighbourhood Plan (including HE3: Rural Exception Sites, and BE5: applications outside the development boundaries. The Neighbourhood Plan can be found here: https://www.northdevon.gov.uk/media/381009/georgeh..

Please sign the petition by 2nd January. We really need your support. There is also a link further down the page to submit objections to the application. The closing date for objections is 3rd January 2022.

Read on for more details regarding the application and why it should not be allowed to go ahead.

Georgeham Parish is in the North Devon Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its villages have more than exceeded the minimum provision for new houses specified in the North Devon and Torridge Local Plan 2011 – 2031; the number granted permission in Croyde is over 70, nearly double the minimum number specified for Croyde in the Local Plan and there is still a long time to go before 2031.

More applications for new houses in the Parish are going through the planning system. The latest planning application (ref. 74488) is to put 5 market value, principal residence occupancy houses on the agricultural field next to Langsfield. None of these houses meets identified housing needs of the local community, which is overwhelmingly for social rented housing. They are all essentially substantial 4 bed houses. 3 x 4 beds and 2 x 3 beds with another room designated as a study but which can be a bedroom. People who will be able to afford these houses are people who can already afford to buy the existing housing stock that comes up for sale.

This proposed housing would eat up more of the AONB’s finite agricultural land to provide housing that is not needed as there is already sufficient existing housing stock of this type to meet this market. See for example the new houses marketed months ago and still for sale, being built on the field in front of Somerthing Lane and the remaining home for sale at Serenity more than a year after it was marketed. Local people living and working in the area cannot compete with the prices these houses are marketed for. Green agricultural fields are therefore being built on to the detriment of the local community, the beautiful landscape and natural environment and habitats. People cannot afford to live and work here doing the jobs that the tourist industry requires. Agricultural land is being priced out of the reach of those farming the land and adversely affecting their businesses. This is harming the balance and the effectiveness of the local economy. Whilst the Neighbourhood Plan that was voted for by the community in November 2021 provides that all new housing be for principal residence occupancy, building market value houses on green agricultural land goes against the Neighbourhood Plan and all that it stands for.

Developers are trying to get around statutory protections and planning provisions for AONB’s that only permit the building of houses on green field areas in extremely limited circumstances. Developers are using the current inadequate 5 year housing supply for the whole of North Devon to build houses located on green sites in the AONB, profiting individual businesses at the expense of escalating harm to the natural landscape and local communities. The worrying effect of this government policy is its untold permanent harm to AONB’s and the natural environment and the long term sustainability of their local communities. Please sign this petition to object to the planning application 74488 and better still also lodge your own objection with North Devon District Council here:

https://planning.northdevon.gov.uk/Planning/Display/74488?fbclid=IwAR1qwn8HKDJkzCNfs4jUoFsk1LMQoniHfSRtYoUxbGuzGInApm1a4kQ0RJU

The time limit for representations is 3rd January 2022. The petition will be forwarded to NDDC and local District Councillors.