A successful campaigner who led a fight to stop a housing development on green fields has shared her secrets. 

Monica Stark has steered the Oakham South Action Group (OSAG) for several years and last week successfully fended off Taylor Wimpey's 140-home scheme off Brooke Road in Oakham. 

OSAG argued the scheme was too close to a busy level crossing and would be accessed by a narrow, one-way country road. They won over members of Rutland County Council's planning committee, who refused the application, going against the recommendation of the council's officers. 



The 140-home housing development was planned to be off Brooke Road in Oakham (Photo: LDRS)

A week on, Monica Stark has reflected on why OSAG won its battle and hopes it will embolden others facing developments in unsuitable locations. 

The fight against the development started 17 years ago and Monica took over eight years ago. A committee of 15 pored over the plans and put together a 57-page objection when they were discussed as part of the Rutland Local Plan examination last month.   

Monica said: "Because I have been able to dedicate so much time to reading, reading and reading, it has meant that as long as you are on top of the information, you can win. You just really need to know everything about your case and everything about what the developer is saying and, in this case, the council." 

Council officers had requested the elected planning committee members approve the development, partly because Rutland lacks areas allocated for housing. National government policy dictates that every planning authority should have a 'five-year land supply' to map out where new homes are built. 

advertisement

But at the meeting Monica said the argument was 'shameful' and said the five-year land supply issue only amounts to a tiny part of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) , which guides planning laws, and that officers were giving it too much consideration. 

She said: "Only four paragraphs in the National Planning Policy Framework are about housing supply and the rest of the 239 are about the material difference in the area, such as highway safety, or landscape sensitivity.  

"If you are asking elected representatives to vote something through simply because of the housing supply, what you are actually saying is 'we're asking you to contravene all the other points in the framework that are to do with highways safety or landscape sensitivity, and on top of that you are asking them to jettison all the policies that the council has voted through as a council. And it is despicable." 

Following her group's victory, she would love to think others will now 'argue vehemently' against the five-year land supply argument, because it 'does not mean anything in material terms.' 

She said the group expects an appeal from the house builder, but hopes they have proven the development is unsustainable. 

The group will celebrate its victory 'with a great big knees up' at the pub.