Council snubs home builders

This is a news piece from a local paper but I found it interesting in that it seemingly goes against the grain, or at least the perception, that home builders can pressure councils into whatever decision they desire.
http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.1076205.0.housing_plan_thrown_out.php

A local university college wants to sell a satellite campus on the edge of greenbelt in a marginally congested traffic area to home builders.  The decision was to be made today whether this would go ahead.  While I feel for the university who is trying to sell to expand in the town centre, something that makes sense to me, the home building would take away precious areas that are mainly playing fields and green areas.  The council, completely surprisingly to us rejected the plan.

Ideally, the council would prefer the land would be used as originally intended from historical locally planning policy:  community facilities, leisure centre and playing fields.  Traffic would be a nightmare if it went ahead.

Has anyone else run into these kinds of things in their area?  Any councils that stood up and didn't give in to big money?  Or maybe towns and villages where building has run roughshod over greenbelt, destroying the local ambiance or causing traffic chaos?

They're building houses on every empty space round my way - the council certainly aren't stopping them.  Seriously, companies are building 2 houses together on pieces of land - just 2, cos that's all that will fit - they usually build a whole housing estate at a time.

There is currenlty a lot of concern about lack of housing in the UK (think of all the threads on here complaining about house prices or finding affordable places to rent); creating more homes has become an important political issue.

So in this case, even though it would be nice to have more green space, I can see why local authorities would prioritise building homes.

Sweetpeach,
That, obviously, is the driving factor for the gov't so that they can get votes from people because it looks like they're creating affordable housing for them.

But this is a very naive approach.  Let's say a company wants to build a development of 50 homes.  The road going by the home site is already pretty congested, the water supply is barely capable of reaching the existing homes and there's one school with 40 kids to each class.  Also, the bus comes by once every half hour if lucky.

The developer is going to try to weasle away with as little cost as possible on their end.  They may even "promise" to improve conditions.  But there don't seem to be guarantees in place and nothing gets improved or nothing can get improved.

The proposed development I raised went by a single lane (on each side) road out to villages and in the morning after 8.00 it is a nightmare of a congested area.  It is not physically possible to widen the road, it is constrained by existing houses or farms on either side.

Fortunately, the councilors stuck to their guns and agreed that once building started there was no going back on the greenfield, it would be lost forever.
Whatever happened to building on brownfield sites?  The fear is that most of the greenfield in this country gets permission to built upon and that's it, game over, the countryside is gone.

It certainly isn't about getting votes for the government why they allow so many houses to be built.  It is the local authority that grants the planning permission, and they have no relation to the government of the day (apart from political party), and in Britain, people tend not to directly relate local council authority and national government.

However...

there have been several situations where local councils have refused planning permission, and national government have overturned the refusal.


Vicky

"Knock Wood" but we have had a guy trying for six years (six different applications) to build behind us and he has been refused both by the council in our area and by the appellate  court. Us, along with other homeowners have blocked him. He went ahead and cut down all the trees (even a beautiful oak tree) and now the lot looks like a wasteland; however, I don't think he will stop trying. Every time he puts in an application, I always think it'll go through, and yet it hasn't. Wish he would give up.

I know...when pigs fly.