Work to start on new planning bluepring as developers challenge rules

Rotherham Council has a Local Plan, a document which sets out areas of land deemed suitable for both housing and industrial development in the years ahead.

That is intended to help ensure the town has a co-ordinated approach to future developments, and it also includes land earmarked as ‘safeguarded’, no longer in the Green Belt, but not regarded as suitable for development while the Local Plan is in place.

However, the council accepts Government rules have changed and is expecting to start work on a new Local Plan - the current one lasts until 2028 - in the next few months.

Current ‘safeguarded’ sites could be made available for development in future, but the council has had a flurry of applications from developers seeking permission to build on such sites immediately.

All include arguments that the council is behind on expectations for the numbers of new homes it is expected to provide.

The council strongly contests those arguments - but if the developers’ arguments were deemed to be correct, it could open up the prospect of green field sites being used at a point where residents did not expect to see building.

The latest is for a site at Cumwell Lane in Hellaby, where Barratt David Wilson Homes hope to construct around 260 new homes, on what is currently two fields.

Their application states “very significant weight” should be given to the council’s “very significant…shortfall of deliverable housing land over the five year period” ending in 2029, and that the council “cannot demonstrate a deliverable five-year housing land supply”.

They argue the development would contribute towards housing targets and also provide more ‘affordable homes’, with a quarter of the 260 expected to fall into that category.

Another application, by Taylor Wimpey, would see 200 new homes go up on fields off Priestley Avenue, Rawmarsh, with the developer making similar arguments.

Other applications are also in the pipeline.

Rotherham Council’s strategic director, regeneration and environment, Andrew Bramidge said: “Rotherham’s house building is assessed against the Government’s national housing delivery test.

“Rotherham has consistently seen more than 600 homes a year built over the last two decades, with the figure rising above 800 for the last three years. These figures are well above the most recent government target of 550.

“In December 2024, the Government revised the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and changed the method for calculating housing need figures.

“Whilst the government’s new target is more than 1,000 homes per year, there is still the land identified in our current Local Plan to accommodate those for the coming five years (five-year land supply).

“The Ccouncil determines planning applications against national and local planning policy.

“While each planning application has to be judged on its merits, we would expect already allocated sites to receive planning permissions first.

“Following the new government rules, we will be bringing forward a timetable for the development of a new Local Plan over the coming months.”