Stratford Planning: 3 approved, Scout hut still undecided

Nine new homes have been approved in two villages in Stratford-on-Avon district after the council’s Planning Committee met on 12 August, but the rebuild of the 1st Stratford-upon-Avon Scout Group’s headquarters on New Broad Street, the item that drew 52 objection letters, still has no decision notice three days later.

We previewed all four applications on the day of the meeting and said we would report the outcomes. Here they are, taken from the council’s own planning register and its committee papers rather than from the meeting itself, whose minutes have not yet been published.

What was decided

Two of the four were determined by the committee, and both were granted:

• Great Alne Social Club, 26/00524/FUL. The vacant and derelict club near Alcester becomes four one-bedroom flats. The register records the decision as Permission with Conditions, issued on 13 August. The update sheet published for the meeting added one further condition, requiring a hard and soft landscaping plan to be submitted and approved before any of that landscaping is built.
• 68 Westholme Road, Bidford-on-Avon, 26/00032/FUL. Geraghty Group Limited can demolish a conservatory and outbuildings and build five houses behind the property, with an altered access onto the road. The register records Permission with Conditions, issued on 13 August.

The third item never reached the committee. The holiday cottage at the former stables behind Copperfields on Broad Lane, Tanworth-in-Arden, 26/00568/FUL, was on the agenda only because the parish council objected. The update sheet records that as no parish council representative or any other person registered to speak, the application “has been withdrawn from the Agenda and has been determined under delegated powers (in consultation with the Chair of Planning Committee)”. It was granted, with the decision issued on 12 August. It is now an ordinary home rather than a holiday let.

The Scout hut is still waiting

The Scout headquarters application, 25/02675/FUL, is the one local readers have been following, and it is the one still open. As of today, 15 August, the council’s planning register lists its status as Pending Decision, with no decision recorded, no decision date, and the case record last updated on 31 July, before the meeting. The minutes of the 12 August meeting have not been published, so what the committee resolved is not yet on the public record. We are not going to guess at it, and we will report the outcome when the council publishes it.

The papers do show what the committee had in front of it on the night. The update sheet records correspondence from Elizabeth Dixon of Accessible Stratford about toilet provision: the plans show one disabled shower and WC plus one unisex WC at ground floor and a further unisex WC at first floor, and the case officer’s view was that toilet provision is a matter for building regulations rather than planning. A third party also submitted a light assessment by a right of light surveyor, arguing that shadow studies show a noticeable reduction in winter sunlight to a neighbouring ground-floor living room that the BRE percentages understate. Officers reviewed it and did not shift, concluding that the applicant’s own BRE assessment acknowledges some loss of winter sunlight hours but keeps it within the BRE guidelines.

The first version of this scheme, 24/00942/FUL, was refused on 1 August 2024.

Why the objections did not carry the day

The council received 70 letters of objection to the Great Alne flats and 28 to the Bidford houses, and both had a parish council against them. Both were approved anyway, and the officer reports are unusually blunt about why: Stratford-on-Avon District Council cannot demonstrate anything close to a five-year housing land supply.

The report on the Bidford application sets out the arithmetic. Using the standard method, the district’s annual local housing need is 1,112 dwellings, so the five-year requirement is 5,560. Against that, the council’s own position document as at 31 March 2025 puts the supply at 2.21 years, a figure the council publishes on its five year housing supply page.

That shortfall triggers paragraph 11(d) of the National Planning Policy Framework, the “tilted balance”: housing policies are treated as out of date and permission should be granted unless the harm significantly and demonstrably outweighs the benefit. In Bidford the officer found “minor visual harms” in the layout and a failure to meet the council’s own guidance on how far residents must carry bins, but gave those limited weight, while giving significant positive weight to five homes in a district with a 2.21-year supply. In Great Alne the harms identified were undersized communal amenity space and reduced privacy for some flats, both given moderate weight, against significant weight for four more homes.

The Great Alne objections leaned heavily on the loss of a community building next door to the village’s Memorial Hall. That argument ran into a specific piece of history. The social club was once registered as an Asset of Community Value, but the officer’s report records that the status expired on 21 February 2021, and an application to regain it was refused on 15 May 2023 because it failed section 88(2)(b) of the Localism Act 2011: there was no realistic prospect of the club use resuming within five years. The officer gave that significant weight, treating it as evidence that the council’s own policy test for losing a community facility was met. On the Memorial Hall itself, the officer found no substantive evidence that its viability was tied to the club next door, and noted that the permission places no new restriction on the hall’s hours or noise. A parish housing need survey in March 2023 had identified a need for nine one-bedroom flats or maisonettes in Great Alne.

One error in the Bidford papers was corrected on the night: the report’s title page had put the site inside the Bidford Conservation Area. The update sheet confirms that was wrong, and that the pink dashed line on the plan was the ward boundary between Bidford East and Bidford West. No part of the site is in or next to the conservation area. Councillors Pemberton and Jones had made a member site visit on 6 August.

What it means for you

The 2.21-year figure is the single most useful thing to understand about planning in this district right now. While it stands, the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies to most housing applications, and objections about traffic, road maintenance, character or amenity have to clear a much higher bar than usual: not that the harm exists, but that it significantly and demonstrably outweighs the benefit of the homes. Both approvals above turned on exactly that test.

If you objected to either scheme, the permissions come with conditions, and conditions are enforceable. The full decision notices and the conditions attached to them appear on each application’s page on the council’s planning register. For the Bidford scheme, a construction management plan is among them, which is where concerns about construction traffic on an unadopted private road are meant to be handled.

For anyone tracking the Scout hut, the application page is the place to watch rather than the committee page: the decision notice will appear there, and the minutes will follow on the council’s democratic services site.

More on how planning works locally, including how to comment on live applications, is on our Stratford planning news page, and district house prices are on our Stratford house prices page.