Area may see 27,000 homes built after plan approved

More than 27,000 more homes could be built across a district where residents had raised fears there would be "a new town - without a new town plan".

Huntingdonshire has already seen a faster rate of housebuilding than the national average and campaigners have called for Huntingdonshire District Council to "pause" its local plan to look at the "cumulative impact" of development.

On Wednesday the council approved the latest version of its local plan, which included about 4,000 homes at Wyton Airfield and 3,800 at The Lattenburys at Hemingford Abbots.

The Liberal Democrat council leader Sarah Conboy said voting to support the plan was "not an easy decision" and they would work with government.

"If we could guarantee all of the infrastructure first we would do that, but we can't," she said.

"What we will commit to alongside this, though, is lobbying at every opportunity and making the case for Huntingdonshire and what it needs as it continues to grow – now, and for the residents of the future, and that's something we can promise."

A local plan is a legal document that councils have to prepare to set out the future use of land and this version will apply until 2046.

Brett Mickelburgh, a Liberal Democrat councillor, told the authority that 18 months ago the government recognised Huntingdonshire as a "high-growth area" and raised its housing target by 50%.

He said this placed the council in "tilted balance" – where a housing shortfall weighs planning decisions in favour of developers.

This means if the council rules against an application, it is more likely to be overruled by the Planning Inspectorate, which could also order it to pay the developer's appeal costs.

David Keane, a Conservative councillor, questioned whether the plan was the right way to build new homes with infrastructure already strained.

He said: "We cannot keep saying that the developer's pound can be spent here, here and here – it can only be spent once to make this all work."

Reform UK councillor Peter Gammons called the number of houses "outrageous", adding: "It would be a betrayal of the residents who voted for us and are already angry at the disappearing of their communities."

Labour's Alex Bulat said she "cannot blame anyone who is rightly questioning this plan", but added "it is also true that we haven't been building enough for decades".

Green councillor Lara Davenport-Ray said she believed the target set by the government was "absurdly inflated" but without a local plan the market would decide where homes were built.

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