Officers back all three schemes at the 9 September committee, citing Broadland's missing five-year housing land supply. Speaking requests close 5pm Friday.
Ten homes across three Broadland villages go before the district’s planning committee next Wednesday, and officers have recommended every one of them for approval.
All three sites sit outside or partly outside a settlement boundary. Two of the three are opposed by the parish council, and one is opposed by the local district councillor. The reports say the same thing in each case: Broadland cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites, so national policy tilts the decision towards approval.
Anyone who wants to speak at the meeting has to ask by 5pm on Friday 4 September, by email to committee.bdc@southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk. The meeting is at 10am on Wednesday 9 September at the Horizon Centre, Peachman Way, Norwich NR7 0WF, and is live streamed on YouTube.
What is on the agenda
The agenda and officer reports were published on 1 September. Three applications are listed:
- Taverham, 151 Taverham Road. Outline permission to demolish a bungalow and build two self-build homes. Reference 20212201/O.
- Horsford, land at Juniper Way. Full permission for five detached bungalows. Reference 2024/3801/F.
- Little Witchingham, a barn at Hall Farm Barns, Reepham Road. Outline permission for three homes and an access. Reference 2026/1112/O.
The Taverham application has been running for five years
The application at 151 Taverham Road carries a 2021 reference, and it has shrunk twice since it was made. It started as four market dwellings, was cut to three, and is now two self-build homes with everything except access reserved for later.
Taverham Parish Council has objected at all three rounds of consultation. Its position has not moved: homes fronting Taverham Road on the established building line would be acceptable, but part of the rear plot lies outside the settlement boundary and is not supported by the Greater Norwich Local Plan or the Taverham Neighbourhood Plan.
The volume of public objection has fallen as the scheme shrank. The officer report records 28 objections and three letters of support against the four-home version, then 12 objections against each of the later two.
Two district councillors also objected. Cllr Stuart Clancy raised the risk of a precedent for building towards the Wensum Valley and asked for the case to come to committee if officers were minded to approve it, which is why it is now on the agenda. Cllr K Kelly objected on the same ground, noting that the Taverham Neighbourhood Plan specifically excludes development beyond the settlement boundary within the Wensum Valley. CPRE Norfolk objected to the original four-home scheme.
Cllr Clancy is listed as a member of the planning committee. Declarations of interest are the first item on the agenda.
Officers say the site is mostly inside the settlement boundary, the part outside is next to it, and Norfolk County Council as highway authority does not object subject to conditions. Bats were checked properly: a preliminary roost assessment on 4 February 2026 found potential access points between the roof tiles, and emergence surveys in May and June found no bats leaving the bungalow. Sixteen conditions are proposed.
Horsford: five bungalows officers admit break the plan
The Horsford application is the blunt one. It is going to committee for a specific reason, stated at the top of the report: the application is contrary to the development plan and the recommendation is for approval.
The site is at the end of Juniper Way, a private road off Mill Lane, outside the defined settlement limit for Horsford. Five detached bungalows are proposed, two with three bedrooms and three with two bedrooms, each with a detached garage.
Horsford Parish Council made no comment. Neither did the district councillor. Seven letters came in from the public, three supporting and four objecting, mostly about overlooking, trees and drainage.
The Horsford Neighbourhood Plan would normally weigh against a scheme like this. It does not here, and the reason is a date. Under the new national framework, a neighbourhood plan only carries that protection if it became part of the development plan five years or less before the decision. Horsford’s was made on 12 July 2018, so it is out of time.
Little Witchingham: approved because of what could be built anyway
The Little Witchingham case is the most unusual of the three, and it is worth reading if you live anywhere near a farmyard.
Ashlar Developments Ltd wants outline permission to demolish two agricultural buildings at Hall Farm, about three kilometres south-east of Reepham, and build three homes. The site is outside any settlement limit, reached by a tree-lined driveway off Reepham Road.
The parish council, Swannington and Alderford with Little Witchingham, objects. So does district councillor Cllr P Bulman. Their concerns are construction traffic on a narrow oak-lined drive with no room to pass, the capacity of the borehole and sewage treatment plant serving the neighbouring barn conversions, and a scheme far larger than the single dwelling residents expected.
The officer report agrees with a good deal of that. It concludes the proposal conflicts with the spatial strategy, does not fall within the categories of development supported outside settlements, and sits in an unsustainable location where residents would be heavily reliant on cars.
It is recommended for approval anyway, on the strength of what planners call a fallback. The site already has a Class Q approval for one dwelling, and officers judge there is a genuine prospect the second agricultural building could be converted the same way, giving a realistic fallback of at least three homes without any committee involved. Judged against that, a single co-ordinated scheme is held to be the better outcome.
What it means for you
If you want to speak on any of the three, the deadline is 5pm on Friday 4 September and the request goes to committee.bdc@southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk. After that the only options are watching the stream or writing to your district councillor.
The five-year housing land supply point matters well beyond these three sites. While Broadland cannot demonstrate one, the presumption in the National Planning Policy Framework published on 17 August 2026 applies to housing applications outside settlement boundaries across the district. All three reports lean on the same policy, S5, and two of them use it to override a plan conflict. Expect more sites on the edge of villages to come forward on that basis until the supply position changes.
There is a counterweight worth knowing about. The committee also receives a list of appeals, and it shows that between 4 July and 9 August all four appeal decisions in Broadland went the council’s way. Refusals at Reepham, Halvergate, Thorpe St Andrew and Hellesdon were all upheld and the appeals dismissed. Two new appeals were lodged in the same period, at Thorpe St Andrew and Hemblington.
You can check any of these references yourself on the council’s planning register, and we track the bigger local cases on our Broadland planning news page.
Have your say
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