Inspector rejects bid to increase number of homes set to be built on Outwell's Hall Road

An attempt to increase the number of homes built in a West Norfolk village has failed, after a national planning inspector knocked back a developer’s appeal.

Permission had already been granted for some 20 new homes to be built at Hall Road in Outwell.

But the developer, Dene Homes, had requested permission from West Norfolk Council to boost that number to 32.

After that application was refused by the council in September 2021, the developer lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate.

The council had refused it because the scheme was proposing to increase the density of housing outside the defined area for development in the village – effectively an area of open countryside.

In a decision issued on Thursday, October 13, inspector John Morrison said he had come to the same conclusion.

While he admitted that such an increase would be “contextually low”, he said that he had to defer to the principle set out in the borough’s ‘local plan’ which seeks to limit development in the open countryside.