PLANS to remove 11 affordable homes from a 30-home scheme have been described as “opportunistic and cynical”.
In the end councillors decided to defer their decision and to hold further talks about possible options for the St Mary’s School site in Manor Road.
One councillor said the nub of the argument was the definition of ‘viable’.
Cllr David Tooke said his reading of the figures provided by the developer was the difference between a profit of £830,000 with the affordable homes on site and £1.98m in profit if they were not included.
But officers argued that the figures were not necessarily clear profit with independent experts agreeing that the scheme would not be viable, under the Government’s agreed definition, if the affordable homes were retained.
Cllr Alex Brenton said she was prepared to see the developers walk away from the scheme if they genuinely believed it was not worth their while to include the affordable homes.
She said that providing affordable homes was increasingly important across Dorset, more so in town like Swanage, where there were many second and holiday homes, with prices rising so fast that local people were being pushed out of the market.
Read more: Locals fear town ‘losing its beauty and space’ amid new homes plan
The committee heard evidence from one resident, a professional woman in her 40s, who was still living with her parents because she could not afford to buy in the town. She urged the committee to reject the developer’s plea to allow the removal of the affordable homes from the legal agreement made when the scheme was given consent.
Bracken Developments say the housing project at the former St Mary’s School site in Manor Road will not be financially viable if they have to provide the ‘affordable’ homes which were agreed at the time the original consent was granted in 2018.
Ten of the homes for the site will be created by converting former school buildings – the remaining 20 as new builds.
Dorset Council planning committee members will be told that the 1.3 acre site, with five different levels, slopes downwards in a northerly direction towards the High Street.
Swanage town council said it was “frustrated and disappointed” by the application to remove the affordable homes and warned that, if allowed, it would be detrimental to the local housing market and future schemes.
Swanage town council has objected to the proposed change
Local councillors Bill Trite and Gary Suttle both objected to the proposed change in the agreement arguing that the circumstances have not materially change since the application was submitted and that the so-called ‘abnormal’ costs of developing the brownfield site should have been foreseen by a professional developer.
Cllr Trite, who was not allowed to vote because he was considered to have previously made up his mind about the scheme, told the committee that that the removal of the condition was not justified. He said the company’s claim that it will have to find £346,700 in “abnormal costs” to develop the site made no sense and should have been foreseen when they first applied for planning permission.He said that the decision was a test about how serious Dorset Council was with its declared aim to support affordable housing in the county.
He described the application to remove the affordable homes as “opportunistic and cynical”.
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