A PUBLIC debate about meeting West Dorset’s future housing needs is being called for.

Consultants behind plans for 4,000 homes at Upper Woodsford claim West Dorset District Council is wrong to only committing itself to the Dorchester North scheme.

They say their scheme legally ought to be given consideration – pointing out that the Local Plan Inspector said in his report that growth for the area needed to be ‘in the vicinity’ of Dorchester.

“Through the Local Plan consultation, Upper Woodsford has now emerged as a serious option but the District Council comes across as if it had made up its mind some time ago on its growth strategy and, despite growing opposition to it, has not so far shown the political appetite to publicly debate or consider what is a very viable and deliverable strategic site and growth option,” said managing director of Nexus Planning, Roger Tustain.

“A proper political and public debate needs to be had on how housing ‘in the vicinity of Dorchester’ can and should be delivered,” he said.

Mr Tustain says the district council’s planning briefholder, Cllr Ian Gardner, compared ‘apples and pears’ when he spoke at a recent council meeting about the two schemes.

“Councillor Gardner, in response to a question at a meeting of the recent Full District Council, indicated that ‘a study had taken place concluding Upper Woodsford was not suitable and would need considerable investment’.

“This is simply not the case. The Council’s strategy to allocate land at North Dorchester stems directly from the current adopted Local Plan process. In the run up to the Local Plan Examination in 2014, when a new settlement at Upper Woodsford had not been promoted as an option, the Council was vehemently against growth at North Dorchester due to, amongst other things, environmental impact,” said the consultant. But Cllr Gardner says a proper assessment has been made.

Said Mr Tustain: “The Inspector’s only guidance was that this growth needed to be ‘in the vicinity’ of Dorchester. Officers, and subsequently the council, have interpreted this incorrectly. They have concluded, as a starting position, that the only way of accommodating large scale growth, as directed by the Local Plan Inspector, is through an urban extension to Dorchester – despite political and local concern about impact on the historic town.”

“The ‘study’ Councillor Gardner refers to is the ‘Sustainability Appraisal’ which was published with the recent Local Plan Review consultation. That study did not ‘compare’ the merit of a new settlement at Upper Woodsford against a North Dorchester option – there has never been such a study; which in itself is a legal flaw in the process as national planning policy requires Local Planning Authorities to ‘consider all reasonable alternatives’. Instead the study only appraises Upper Woodsford against other sites promoted at Crossways and dismisses it on the grounds that the site is away from the settlement (of Crossways) and would require significant infrastructure. Councillor Gardner is comparing apples with pears.”

He says that the claim made to the district council that the costs of the Upper Woodsford scheme having high infrastructure costs apply equally to the Dorchester North proposals.

Asked to respond to the comments from the planning consultant Cllr Ian Gardner, West Dorset District Councils Portfolio Holder for Planning, said: “All options for development have been assessed against the same ‘sustainability objectives’, set out in Chapter 2 of the sustainability appraisal. There are 11 of these objectives, which include ‘Delivering a wide choice of quality homes’ and ‘developing a strong, stable and prosperous economy’.

“Comparing potential sites against these objectives allows the relative sustainability of each option to be directly compared with one another. This helped to inform the decision to either select a site as a growth option in Preferred Options document or reject the site.”

“The land north of the railway at Crossways was put forward in response to the earlier Issues and Options consultation. This site was considered as an alternative when preparing the Preferred Options document. However as it would require significant investments in infrastructure the site has not been taken forward at this time.

“Our preferred options document included significant sites for Crossways and our Neighbouring Authority, Purbeck District Council, is also proposing development in the area.”