Decision on Compton homes deferred due to flood risk
Last Wednesday, West Berkshire Council’s western area planning committee considered plans for a mix of two-, three- and four-bedroom homes on Green’s Yard, immediately to the south of the main IAH site, put forward by Persimmon Homes.
Outline permission, which dictates that the site is considered appropriate for development, was granted in 2002 and refreshed in 2011, something which the council’s legal officers claimed would make a refusal hard to uphold at appeal.
However, councillors argued that the most recent flooding situation in the late part of 2013 and early this year showed that this permission should no longer be valid. The site also lies within flood zones two and three, meaning that there is a medium-to-high risk of flooding.
George Chandler (Con, Downlands) said: “We need assurances that the village can cope with the water that could potentially come out of this site in the future.
“You don’t have to have a very long memory to remember what happened in this village in the spring.
“It has completely opened our eyes to what flooding can do and we should be very wary of granting permission. We would be silly to not pay attention to that and take extra care for the future.”
The bulk of Compton Parish Council’s objections related to flood risk at the site.
Parish council representative Alison Strong said the application should be refused. “We would be consenting to housing that’s liable to flooding and I don’t know how people would get house insurance,” she said.
However, a report from Thames Water said the most recent flooding in West Berkshire was the result of extreme weather events and was not isolated to Compton, adding that the existing network in the village does have capacity for new homes.
Anthony Stansfeld (Con, Kintbury) proposed that the decision was deferred until an independent flood risk assessment had been carried out at the site. Councillors voted unanimously to support the proposal.