TWO successful planning appeals mean that Tenbury has the prospect of 100 new houses being built in and around the town.

Most of the planning permissions relate to sites in the vicinity of Tenbury High School and result from developers lodging successful appeals against refusals by Malvern Hills planners.

Tony Penn, who represents Tenbury on Malvern Hills District Council, where he used to be the planning portfolio holder says that other schemes may also come forward.

The influx of planning applications is partly as a result of the failure to have a development plan in place.

A South Worcestershire Development Plan is being prepared jointly by Malvern Hills District Council, Worcester City Council and Wychavon District Council.

It will set out the number of new houses to be built in south Worcestershire including Tenbury and the Teme Valley between now and 2030.

The hope is that the plan will be ratified and in place by the end of February this year. But this is not definite as a previous draft was thrown back by the Planning Inspector who wanted provision made for more houses.

Even if this plan does get the thumbs up for early next year there could be a further delay if it was challenged and taken to Judicial Review.

The absence of a plan means that the area is very vulnerable to speculative planning applications from developers as the bar has been set high by Government for rejection.

It means, as has proved to be the case with Malvern Hills District Council that developers have a strong chance of success if they take an unsuccessful application to appeal.

“There is no question that without having a plan in place any developer has a very strong chance of success and they know it,” said Tony Penn.

“It is for this reason that there have been so many applications and it could continue. When the development plan is in case there will be a much stronger case for refusing housing schemes.”

But Tony Penn feels that there is simply not the demand for the number of houses that there is permission to build in the Tenbury area.

“It is hard to see that there is going to be the demand because this is a rural area and there are simply not the local jobs to support a much bigger population,” he added.

“As it stands at present houses are not selling that well in and around Tenbury and there are a number that have been on the market for some time. I think the developers must be suffering from indigestion.”

He believes that new proposals announced by the Government at the Conservative Party conference may have an impact and encourage developers.

Full details have still to be released but it will mean that the requirement for developers to allocation a proportion on homes on a new site for social housing will be changed to allow them to be ‘affordable purchase.’

“At this stage we do not have enough information but this may encourage more applications to build,” Tony Penn added.