Great Gonerby housing development refused by South Kesteven District Council for damaging ‘attractive rural setting’

Plans to build nine new homes at the edge of a village have been refused after council officers said the project would “erode the attractive rural setting”.

The scheme at the north-eastern fringe of Great Gonerby, near Grantham, would have seen six five-bed and three four-bedroom houses built on the site.

However, South Kesteven Council’s (SKDC) development manager Phil Jordan said in his report that the new builds would spill beyond the village’s natural limits: “The existing hedge on the eastern boundary of 61 Belton Lane marks the edge of the main built-up part of Great Gonerby to the north of Belton Lane.

“The application site, which is beyond this boundary, has a verdant quality which contributes positively to the rural setting of the village and itself is largely rural in character.

“This can be enjoyed by users of the public right of way that runs through the site and appreciated when approaching the village from the east.

“The proposed development, as a matter of principle, would erode this rural setting and result in significant harm to its existing rural character.

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“This would be exacerbated if the development were laid out in a form and density as shown on the indicative block plan, which would be completely at odds with the existing linear pattern of development to the north of Belton Lane.”

The local parish council gave broad support for the scheme, providing those behind it – Oakham-based Grange Developments – maintained the site’s ancient hedgerows, enhanced a neighbouring footpath, and donated a ‘community contribution’ to towards upgrading the village’s playground and an unspecified youth project.

Heritage Lincolnshire raised the possibility that the site could be covering part of the lost medieval village of Easthorpe, which archaeologists believe was part-excavated in the 1970s, although SKDC said there was ‘insufficient evidence’ that the development would have a negative impact.

The council conceded there was a need for housing across the district, with Lincolnshire set a mandatory target of building 1,552 new houses each year in the county until the next general election.

The Government pledged to build 1.5 million new homes in England during that time, with Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook saying in a House of Commons speech: “England is in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis.

“1.3 million people [are] languishing on social housing waiting lists; millions of low-income households forced into insecure, unaffordable and far too often substandard private rented housing; and, to our shame as a nation, just shy of 160,000 homeless children living right now in temporary accommodation.”

The parcel of land in Great Gonerby had a previous application for eight homes meet the same fate in 2023, which planning officers turned down for “unacceptable encroachment...into the countryside”.