The district can show 2.21 years of housing land, not five. Officers back all four village sites at Wednesday's Planning Committee, over 73 objections.

Stratford-on-Avon District Council can demonstrate 2.21 years of housing land supply against a five-year requirement. That single figure appears in all four officer reports going to the Planning Committee on Wednesday, and it is why all four recommend approval.

Every application on the agenda is on land outside a built-up area boundary. Every one was sent to committee because a parish or town council, a ward member, or both, objected. Seventy-three objection letters have been logged between them. Officers recommend GRANT in each case.

The committee meets at 6pm on Wednesday 9 September in the Council Chamber at Elizabeth House, Church Street, Stratford-upon-Avon.

The number behind all four

The council’s position document, “Stratford-on-Avon District Council 5 Year Housing Land Supply calculation at 31st March 2025”, covers 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030. The reports set out the arithmetic:

  • the standard method gives a local housing need of 1,112 dwellings a year
  • over five years, that is a requirement of 5,560 dwellings
  • against that, the council can demonstrate 2.21 years of deliverable supply

The consequence is set out plainly in the Tanworth report. Because there is an “evidenced unmet need”, national policy tells officers to approve development outside settlements unless the benefits are substantially outweighed by the harm. Core Strategy policies that would refuse it, CS.15, CS.16 and AS.10, are given “very limited weight” because they are judged materially inconsistent with the national decision-making policies in the August 2026 version of the National Planning Policy Framework.

Neighbourhood plans get the same treatment where they fail a two-part test. A neighbourhood plan is protected only if it became part of the development plan five years ago or less and contains allocations meeting its identified housing requirement. Tanworth-in-Arden’s plan was made in 2022 but has no such allocations, so the protection does not apply and its Policy H3 is also given very limited weight.

Stratford-on-Avon district housing land supply and the four sites at the 9 September Planning Committee Two panels. The first compares the five-year housing land supply requirement with the 2.21 years the district council can demonstrate. The second lists the four permission in principle applications on the 9 September 2026 Planning Committee agenda: Butts Lane at Tanworth-in-Arden, up to 9 homes, 44 objections; Jago Green at Snitterfield, up to 5 homes, 22 objections; Hunt Hall Lane at Welford-on-Avon, up to 4 homes, 4 objections; and Bordon Hill in Stratford-upon-Avon, 2 homes, 3 objections. Officers recommend approval of all four. A 2.21-year land supply, and four village sites recommended for approval Stratford-on-Avon district. Supply position at 31 March 2025; applications on the 9 September 2026 Planning Committee agenda. Housing land supply, years Required 5.00 Demonstrated 2.21 Requirement: 1,112 homes a year, 5,560 over five years. On the agenda, Wednesday 9 September Site Max homes Objections Butts Lane, Tanworth-in-Arden 9 44 Jago Green, Snitterfield 5 22 Hunt Hall Lane, Welford-on-Avon 4 4 Bordon Hill, Stratford-upon-Avon 2 3 Total 20 73 All four are permission in principle applications. Officers recommend GRANT on all four. Source: officer reports to Stratford-on-Avon District Council Planning Committee, 9 September 2026. Graphic by Stratford Avon News
The district's supply position and the four sites it is being used to justify.

The four sites

Butts Lane, Tanworth-in-Arden, reference 26/00918/PIP. Up to nine houses on a 0.47 hectare site immediately outside the village boundary, in the Green Belt and the Arden Special Landscape Area. The applicant is Summers Holdings Limited. Forty-four objections were received, including from Tanworth Residents Association and Tanworth Educational Foundation. The parish council and the ward member, Councillor L Organ, both object. The county highways authority raised no objection, noting that vehicle movements on Butts Lane “were few and far between” on its site visit.

Jago Green, Snitterfield Lane, Snitterfield, reference 26/00617/PIP. Between one and five dwellings, again in the Green Belt and the Arden Special Landscape Area, next to the built-up area boundary. The applicant is Mr Steve Taylor. Twenty-two objections. A previous permission in principle on the site, 25/02708/PIP, was refused on 6 March 2026. The parish council says the land “has never been developed”, holds high biodiversity value protected under the neighbourhood plan, and cannot be grey belt merely by sitting at the edge of the village.

Land south of Elm Leys, Hunt Hall Lane, Welford-on-Avon, reference 26/00772/PIP. Up to four dwellings on edge-of-settlement open countryside. The applicant is Saffron Estates (Elm Leys) Ltd. Four objections. The parish council calls the land grade 2 agricultural, “best and most versatile”, and says Welford-on-Avon “has far exceeded its housing allocation”. Its second response is explicit that even given the supply shortfall, the neighbourhood plan and a recent residents’ survey show the village does not support building outside the boundary.

Land between Clunes and Sundial, Bordon Hill, Stratford-upon-Avon, reference 26/01588/PIP. Two dwellings with a pedestrian crossing, in open countryside. The applicant is Mr A Broadhurst. Three objections. An earlier scheme here for up to nine dwellings, 25/03048/PIP, was refused on 10 April 2026. Stratford-upon-Avon Town Council maintains its objection, saying the site is “some distance from the built-up area boundary”, a considerable walk or cycle from town amenities and up a very steep hill, so residents would rely on the car.

What permission in principle actually decides

This matters for anyone reading the agenda. A permission in principle application settles only three things: location, land use and scale. Design, access details, drainage and layout are not decided at this stage. If a PiP is granted, the applicant still needs a separate technical details consent before anything is built.

So the committee on Wednesday is not approving nine houses at Tanworth. It is deciding whether houses, in a stated number range, are acceptable there in principle. The Tanworth recommendation, for example, is for a minimum of three and a maximum of nine.

The argument officers make, and the one against

The Tanworth report is the fullest, and shows the reasoning across all four. Officers accept the scheme conflicts with the Core Strategy, with the neighbourhood plan and with the emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan. They then set that conflict aside, on the grounds that the policies carry very limited weight and there is an evidenced unmet need.

Weighed in favour: the contribution of up to nine homes to what the report calls the district’s “substandard housing land supply”, given substantial weight. The report notes the council has identified a need for about 133 dwellings in the Tanworth neighbourhood area over five years, so nine homes would meet more than 5% of it.

Weighed against: harm from urbanising undeveloped land at the edge of the village, given limited to moderate weight.

The objections that officers do not accept are worth naming, because the same arguments will be made at the meeting. Objectors point to Arup’s Green Belt Review of May 2026, produced as evidence for the South Warwickshire Local Plan, which they say found sites next to larger settlements in this district to be unsustainable locations. Tanworth Parish Council puts the logic squarely: if sites on the edge of larger settlements are not sustainable, “it is very difficult to see how this site on the edge of a small village could be considered sustainable”.

Officers answer that Tanworth-in-Arden is a Category 4 Local Service Village with a primary school, church, village hall, pub and post office, garage, dental clinic, bowls club, tennis club and recreation ground, plus a limited bus service to Solihull, Hockley Heath and Redditch. The centre of the village is a walk of about 400 metres from the site along existing pavements.

What it means for you

If you live in one of these four villages, the practical point is that the outcome does not turn on the merits of your village. It turns on a district-wide number. Until the council can show five years of supply, the same reasoning applies to the next edge-of-settlement application, and the next.

If your parish has a neighbourhood plan, check two things: when it was made, and whether it allocates sites to meet its own housing requirement. On the reading officers are using, a plan that fails either test gives very little protection. Tanworth’s fails the second.

If you want to follow it, the committee sits at 6pm on Wednesday 9 September at Elizabeth House. Papers for each application, including the full objection summaries and consultation responses, are on the agenda page. Our planning news page tracks the wider picture, including the South Warwickshire Local Plan.

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