A government minister has driven a nail into the coffin for a project to build nearly 150 homes in a commuter village south of Reading.
The company Wates Developments applied to build 148 homes on six fields north of the Reading Gospel Hall at Three Mile Cross.
The project would have provided 67 affordable homes, making up 45.3 per cent of the development.
However, the plan has been rejected three times, with the death knell for the project being dealt by Matthew Pennycook, the minister for housing and planning.
It was initially refused by Wokingham Borough Council’s planning department in July last year, as the site is not designated for development within the council’s Local Plan.
Although Wates Developments appealed against the decision, this was dismissed by a government-appointed planning inspector in February this year.
Mr Pennycook then ‘called in’ the plan to determine it himself.
The project has been torpedoed due to a disagreement over the need to protect people in the event of a nuclear disaster or attack.
The site falls within the Detailed Emergency Planning Zone (DEPZ) given the proximity of the site to the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Burghfield.
The DEPZ requires the AWE, the council and other responsible authorities to plan for a nuclear disaster or attack, which involves telling residents to shelter inside for their safety, and other protective measures like evacuation or distribution of tablets to deal with radiation poisoning.
During the appeal, planning agents for Wates Developments stated: “The effects of the housing crisis are manifesting themselves now.
They are not dependent on a one-in-two-million-year nuclear accident.
“The council’s shelter period, in circumstances where the worst-case consequences of the explosion in F21 weather conditions contaminate only one per cent of the DEPZ, is of an unreasonable length.”
Agents for Wates Developments argued a sheltering period of 48 hours would be too long, and instead suggested that people would have to shelter between two to six hours instead.
However, Siobhan Watson, the planning inspector, stated: “I take the evidence of the people who would actually be involved in the emergency response very seriously and they think it would take much longer than two to six hours.”
Ultimately, Mr Pennycook sided with Siobhan Watson’s reasons for the dismissal of the appeal, judging that the development would present an ‘unacceptable risk’ to the future capability and capacity of AWE Burghfield to operate effectively.
You can view the application by typing reference 233038 into the council’s planning portal and the appeal using reference APP/X03060/W/24/3354607.
The DEPZ also doomed the Grazeley ‘garden town’ project, which would have added 15,000 homes to the nearby village.
Mr Pennycook is the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich.
