A delay by Swindon Borough Council in making a decision on a planning proposal for 2,500 houses in the New Eastern Villages project means a government-appointed Planning Inspector will now step in.

In March 2021 land promoter Ainscough Strategic Land was granted planning permission to build 2,500 hours plus shops, playing fields and sports pitches, a primary school and industrial and office buildings at the Lotmead site – part of the 8,000-home NEV expansion of Swindon past the A419.

In late 2021 Countryside Sovereign Swindon LLP - a partnership between Countryside a mixed-tenure housing developer, and the Sovereign Housing Association  - bought the land and had been working on the project.

In March 2023 the partnership applied to vary seven of the 64 conditions that were imposed upon it as part of the original planning consent.

Those conditions concerned the phasing of different parts of the construction, the area design code, and five conditions concerned with flooding, crossing the several waterways in the area and surface water management.

The developer said of the changes: “The proposed amendments are minor and act to regularise the assessment work and documents approved as part of the Outline Permission, by bringing it more closely in line with the Parameter Plans, Illustrative Masterplan, technical assessment, and viability assessment.”

It says the changes will allow all the 2,500 houses consented to be built, whereas the existing conditions would see a loss of 330 homes, and “removes the requirement for substantial level raising which removes the need for significant additional 245,000 lorry movements to and from the site, and omits the additional 39,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions associated with the soil imports.”

According to the borough council’s planning portal website a decision on this application was due by the end of August last year.

Now, five-and-a-half months after that deadline, no decision on the application has been made.

And Countryside Sovereign Swindon’s patience has run out.

It has made an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate to have the application decided by an inspector.

The Planning Inspectorate has decided to allow the appeal and it is considering how best the evidence should be presented to the inspector, whether in a formal hearing in person, or through submitted paperwork.

After the planning inspector has made a decision, either party, if they are unhappy with it, can take the matter further to the High Court.

No date has yet been set for the appeal to begin.

Swindon Borough Council has been approached for its comment.