A Ministry of Defence (MoD) director has lifted the lid on the eight-year saga to redevelop a military base and accused Rutland County Council of a pattern on 'delay, defer or stop'.

For the first time, details of the long-running discussions between the MoD and Rutland's head of planning Roger Ranson have been made public, as assistant director of MoD estates Paul Harvey outlined what has been going on behind the scenes regarding the St George's Barracks redevelopment.

Despite talks between the council and the MoD since 2017, the homes plan for the site between North Luffenham and Edith Weston, which next year will be decommissioned, has not made it into the authority's local plan – the masterplan document that maps out where homes will be built over the next two decades.

Instead St George's Barracks has been earmarked as a 'future opportunity' site, meaning it will wait behind other allocated housing schemes across the county.

A six-day public examination of Rutland's local plan started this week and the MoD has argued that the authority has incorrectly ignored the military base proposal.

At the end of the hearing's first day, on Tuesday, planning inspector Kate Child told the council to go away and 'reflect on the issue'.

The council responded by saying it would carry out a sustainability appraisal on a proposal for 500 homes at the military base. This will go out to a six-week public consultation.

Giving evidence before the Government planning inspector, Mr Harvey said: "It was a real surprise to us that we would receive no allocation at all in this current local plan."

He said the council instead suggested the redevelopment of the site in 2035-2040.

"That really does not work for us," said Mr Harvey. "The army are moving out in 2026, what we are going to have is a vacant, brownfield publicly-owned asset that we need to do something with."

The proposal from the MoD had been for 250 to 300 homes on the site initially, with more to follow in the 2030s. But changes to national planning policy "threw a spanner in the works".

He said: "The housing targets that Rutland was stating meant they did not need our allocation essentially. It completely changed and the message was the [planned development of the site] should no longer be looked at.

He said the council, by keeping St George's Barracks off the local plan but suggesting it might be reintroduced through a 'local plan review' at a later date gave the MoD no certainly.

He added that since Rutland County Council turned down nearly £30million of Government funding for new infrastructure to support homes being built at the barracks, the council had operated a policy of "delay, defer or stop" over the site.

The issue of St George's Barracks resulted in a previous draft of Rutland local plan, which had included the site, being ripped up. Starting afresh meant the council wasted about £2million and even if current plan is adopted as an official document to guide planning decisions for the county, it will have to undergo immediate review to accommodate new, much-increased housing targets.

Paul Harvey at Rutland County Council meeting (Photo: LDRS)

Mr Harvey said the current proposal from the MoD is for 500 homes on the barracks, with a 'phase two' that would see existing buildings put to employment use.

He said if assurance were given by the council, the MoD could start on a planning application 'tomorrow'.

Mr Harvey said the site would be 'prime for criminal damage' if left undeveloped.

Government planning inspector Ms Child told Mr Ranson from Rutland County Council that she could 'detect concern' about phase two of the development from him and asked "are you concerned about phase two becoming another 1,500 homes?".

Mr Ranson said: "My concern is the need to masterplan the whole site. It is not clear to us what phase two would be. As much as Paul is passionate about this, the council and community are passionate about this site."

The public examination is continuing and next week will look at how the council has approached allocating sites for housing, dealing with climate change and creating community infrastructure.