Saffron Housing Trust's plan for 152 affordable homes at Thorpe End has 190 objections. The county's flood team and the parish council object too.

A plan for 152 affordable homes on farmland at the eastern edge of Thorpe End Garden Village has drawn 190 objections, against 2 comments in support. Those are the counts on the council’s planning file for application 2026/2268 on 6 November. The application is still awaiting a decision.

The applicant is Saffron Housing Trust. Every home on the 8.17 hectare site, on land south of Plumstead Road, would be affordable housing. It goes back before Thorpe St Andrew Town Council’s planning committee on Monday 9 November, according to the committee agenda.

What is planned

The planning statement sets out the homes:

Tenure Homes What they are
Social rent 107 36 one-bed homes, 45 two-bed, 18 three-bed and 8 four-bed, including 21 bungalows
Shared ownership 45 11 two-bed and 34 three-bed houses
Total 152

The statement also says:

  • the scheme was cut from 162 homes, the figure shown to the council at a pre-application meeting on 18 June 2026
  • bungalows sit along the western edge, next to existing homes
  • every home is built to the M4(2) accessible and adaptable standard, where policy asks for 20%
  • one of the bungalows is a three-bedroom home for a wheelchair user

Who gets the homes

The council’s housing enabling officer welcomed the mix in a response dated 9 September. At least 35 of the social rent homes would go first to households with a local connection to Great and Little Plumstead, which includes Thorpe End. They would then cascade out to neighbouring parishes. That follows the council’s local lettings cascade policy, agreed by Cabinet in April 2025.

The planning statement says 1,016 households were on Broadland’s housing register at the end of June 2026. It puts 273 of them in the parish and the parishes around it, including Thorpe St Andrew, Sprowston, Rackheath, Salhouse and Blofield.

Why it is contested

The site sits outside Thorpe End’s settlement boundary and is not allocated for housing. It is inside the landscape buffer that Policy GT2 of the Growth Triangle Area Action Plan draws around the village to keep it separate from new estates.

The planning statement argues that the council cannot show a five-year supply of housing land. In that case national policy says permission should be granted unless the harm “significantly and demonstrably” outweighs the benefits. It also lists recent schemes in the Growth Triangle and Thorpe St Andrew that were allowed to build fewer affordable homes than policy asks. It puts the shortfall across eight sites at up to 1,233 homes.

The councils and statutory bodies that have responded so far:

  • Great and Little Plumstead Parish Council objects. It says the scheme conflicts with the GT2 buffer and three policies of the village’s neighbourhood plan. It estimates the homes would make the village 25 to 30% bigger, and calls the parking inadequate.
  • Thorpe St Andrew Town Council recommended refusal on 14 September, saying the land is down as a landscape buffer “and should be kept as such”.
  • Norfolk County Council, as lead local flood authority, objects “in the absence of an acceptable Drainage Strategy”. It wants groundwater monitoring results and better water treatment before runoff soaks into the ground, among other things.
  • Natural England says it needs more information. The site drains to the Broads, and a nutrient assessment is required.
  • Anglian Water says Whitlingham Trowse water recycling centre “currently lacks the capacity” for the extra flows. An upgrade is planned for 2025 to 2030. It asks that nobody moves in until it confirms there is room.
  • Network Rail does not object, but wants a proper railway boundary fence and no drainage ponds within 30 metres of the line.
  • Rackheath Community Council asked for Rackheath to be included in the local connection rules, and welcomed the play space.
  • Sprowston Town Council declined to comment because the site is outside its parish.

The council’s heritage and design officer said the layout would give homes better access to open space than the existing village. The officer asked for house designs that match Thorpe End’s interwar garden village style rather than nearby modern estates.

Norfolk County Council expects the homes to generate 33 primary school places and 17 high school places, its planning obligations response says.

How it will be decided

Ward councillor James Harvey asked on 7 September for the application to go to the planning committee. His reasons included the settlement boundary, the landscape buffer, the conservation area, surface water flooding on Woodland Drive, Lawn Crescent and The Boulevard, and sewer capacity.

That request was made under the old rules. Councillors lost the power to call in applications on 31 October, as we reported. Under the council’s transition rules, a call-in made before 1 October lapses, but the application goes straight to review and the call-in is given “due weight”. Applications for 100 homes or more are reviewed automatically anyway. Review means the planning committee chair and the Assistant Director for Planning decide together whether it goes to committee.

What it means for you

  • Parish councils were asked to reply by 11 September, but the application is still undecided. You can read all 407 documents on the council’s planning register.
  • Thorpe St Andrew Town Council meets at 7.30pm on Monday 9 November at Roxley Hall, Yarmouth Road. Residents can speak on applications on the agenda.
  • If you are on the housing register with a connection to Thorpe End or the Plumsteads, the local lettings rules would give you first call on the 35 local homes if it is approved.

Our Broadland planning news page tracks the district’s biggest applications.