Dorset Council’s Northern Planning committee on Tuesday rejected an application for housing development in Stalbridge which has already gone to appeal because the council had made no decision.

The Planning Inspectorate has agreed to consider it through a public inquiry later in the year. Outline planning permission is being sought for up to 114 homes and 200 sqm of retail development on the 5.67-hectare site south of Lower Road.

More than a dozen objectors and people expressing concern include Stalbridge Town Council, ward member Councillor Graham Carr-Jones (the council’s housing portfolio holder) and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. Councillors were asked to give an ‘in principle’ decision on the proposal to convey to the applicant and Planning Inspectorate, and were told by officers that for the purposes of the appeal, the Council would, subject to the receipt of a satisfactory section 106 Agreement and suggested conditions, have granted the application.

They were told that Stalbridge has recently taken on a housing growth in excess of the current adopted Development Plan policies. But the council was unable to demonstrate a five year housing land supply (HLS), and the location, adjacent to the settlement boundary of Stalbridge, was considered to be sustainable. There was not considered to be any significant harm to neighbouring residential amenity, and the impact on landscape due to loss of countryside was not considered sufficient to warrant refusal.

But after a two-hour meeting, councillors disagreed, and voted unanimously to reject the plan due to overdevelopment, unsustainability and environmental harm.

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