References to the (incomplete) Local Plan
In ‘Executive Summary’ accompanying their original informal proposal, Mr Spreckley, the landowner’s agent wrote:
The emerging Local Plan 2025-2045 will require Credenhill to deliver around 300 new houses.
Residents noted at the time that—in addition to being a Chartered Surveyor— Mr Spreckley must also have been clairvoyant, as the quoted Local Plan is even now still in the early stages of development by Herefordshire Council. In email correspondence with Credenhill residents, Herefordshire Council’s Planning Department noted:
the Local Plan is at a very early evidence gathering stage, of which the ongoing call for sites forms a key part. Until the call for sites work is complete and our options worked up, we cannot say for certain what the Local Plan’s spatial growth strategy is going to look like, especially with regard to the settlements outside of the city and market towns. […] At this stage, therefore, any planning application would need to be assessed against the policies of the adopted Core Strategy.
We are pleased to see, then, that the outline application’s Design & Access Statement (PDF) now acknowledges that the application is to be assessed against the requirements of Herefordshire Council’s Adopted 2011-2031 Core Strategy, not Mr Spreckley’s hypothetical Local Plan.
The Core Strategy states that “rural settlements” in the “Hereford” area (49 settlements, of which Credenhill is one) are expected to deliver 1870 new homes in the 2011–2031 period (Policy RA1, Page 106). It does not define a number of new houses that Credenhill specifically is expected to deliver.