80 Homes Approved by Colchester City Council at Great Horkesley
Planning permission from Colchester City Council for 80 dwellings outside the settlement boundary at Great Horkesley, Essex, using emerging local plan allocation weight and resolving flood risk, archaeology, landscape and highways constraints.
PLANNING APPROVALSCOLCHESTERESSEX
Andrew Ransome
7/4/20262 min read
In 2020, Colchester City Council granted planning permission for 80 dwellings, allotments and a Scout and Girl Guiding Hut at Great Horkesley, Essex — a site outside the settlement boundary.
The application was supported by the Council on the basis that the site formed a residential allocation in the emerging Local Plan, which carried significant weight despite having not yet been formally adopted, and was resolved following detailed work on flood risk, landscape, highways and archaeology constraints.
Outline Planning in Colchester
Planning permission was obtained from Colchester City Council for 80 new dwellings on land at Great Horkesley, a village on the outskirts of Colchester in Essex.
The scheme also included highway improvements, land for allotments, and provision of a Scout and Girl Guiding Hut for the local community. The site lies outside the settlement boundary — a location where adopted planning policies would ordinarily resist development.
The critical planning argument was that the application site formed part of an allocation for residential development in Colchester's emerging Local Plan.
National planning policy affords significant weight to emerging plan allocations where they have not attracted substantive unresolved objections.
In this case, the allocation was subject to no material objections, and the technical concerns associated with the site were addressed comprehensively through the supporting information submitted with the application — meaning there was no sound basis for the Council to resist the scheme.
Colchester City Council agreed that the proposed scheme would support the growth and needs of the village, contributing to sustainable development, and granted planning permission.
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Andrew Ransome MRTPI - Email: andrew@andrewransome.co.uk
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Andrew Ransome is a Planning Director and a Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), with more than two decades of experience in town planning.
He specialises in delivering strategic planning solutions for complex developments across both rural and urban environments, helping clients navigate planning challenges and unlock development opportunities. Connect with Andrew on Linkedin.
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