A history of Sandleford - how did we get here?
Plans for a major development at Sandleford Park have been in the pipeline for more than a decade.
The site, which stars in Richard Adams’ classic novel Watership Down, sits between Wash Common, Monks Lane and the A339.
West Berkshire Council adopted Sandleford Park as a Strategic Site Allocation for up to 2,000 homes with associated infrastructure in its core strategy in 2012 following consultations, with the Liberal Democrats accusing the process of being “rigged”.
The park is split between Bloor Homes and Donnington New Homes, who each own separate parts of it, and the council had insisted that a single holistic approach from the developers be submitted to cover the area.
The two companies submitted separate applications in 2015, and West Berkshire Council then gave them over 18 months to come to an agreement before making a decision, knowing they risked an appeal by Bloor Homes because the council potentially couldn’t demonstrate a five-year housing land supply without Sandleford.
The council finally refused the applications from the developers in November 2017 as the two companies “had not delivered on assurances that they would work together on one cohesive plan”.
Half of the homes were expected to be built by 2026, but the delays in building the houses blew a hole in the council’s Local Plan, culminating in a planning inspector granting permission in January 2018 for 401 homes in north Newbury near Vodafone. These are currently being built.
Further linked applications by Bloor Homes and Donnington New Homes, which is owned by local resident Mark Norgate, were then submitted in 2018 for their respective parts of the site, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between them as the link.
The Donnington application, for New Warren Farm on the west side of the site and for up to 440 new homes, remains outstanding, while the council turned down the Bloor Homes application in October 2020 – leading to the company appealing the decision three months later.
The council cited 14 reasons for turning down the application, saying the scheme was unacceptable as it failed to ensure the holistic comprehensive development of the Sandleford Strategic Site Allocation.
It said that an application for only part of the site represented piecemeal development and would prejudice the successful delivery of the entire development, adding that it would also harm a number of irreplaceable priority habitats comprising ancient and veteran trees.
In its appeal papers, Bloor said that the appeal scheme “aligned with the development proposals advanced for the remaining part of the Sandleford allocation at New Warren Farm”.
“Neither scheme prejudices the other,” it said, adding that the appeal scheme provides infrastructure to support the development proposals at New Warren Farm.
