Jackson Ng at East & South Bucks Area Planning Committee, 3 February 2026

Thank you very much. Agenda Item 3.

I rerun the arguments that I raised back in September last year in depth, whereby I was a bit surprised by the approach the council officers were taking. But I don't plan to rehearse those arguments again, because I think we're just going to repeat that the material consideration, et cetera, sort of outweighs it. What I want to know from the officers, Chairman, is has there been any recent permissions on grape belts or similar sites within this authority or any other authorities when there has been a considerable or comparable shortfall against the Golden Rules affordable housing requirement, and it's been accepted? And if so, on what basis? So what I'm looking for is precedent, or are we actually creating precedent in this committee to effectively say, well, you know, 50 % affordable housing, but if it doesn't meet it, let's go ahead. And therefore, any other applications coming forward within this authority will simply have to fall behind us because the precedent has been set. Thank you. So I'm not aware of similar...

Planning, Inspectorate and Decisions and Tilted Balance, etc. So therefore it leads me to my next question, which is my understanding is when full provision of affordable housing cannot be met, inspectors quite sometimes will say actually within the legal agreement, let's have a mechanism where if there's a viability in uplift to increase the affordable housing, let's put that in there. Is that the case in this situation? If so, can you explain to this committee what it means for Buckinghamshire Council? Thank you. So yes, the draft unilateral undertaking...

My memories go back to what happened in September and it's come back to me that the applicant I believe is Eton College. So when it comes to sort of viability, feasibility and financial undertakings etc. do we take into consideration the background of the applicant or the financial background? I thought he might not to. It just seems to me that it might be a relevant point. You have to look at the site because it's the site that's relevant. Anyone could own, anyone can actually develop it off.

Undertaking, Wording, but it's actually not available online. Thank you.

This is not an easy decision and I would like to be clear that I have given careful consideration to the additional information that the officers have provided and also the advice provided by them since the last meeting, including the explanation around the recent appeal decisions where inspectors have accepted reduced affordable housing provisions on viability grounds. I mean, I do fully recognise that there might be an appeal risk here and I do not take that lightly. However, I think that members are still required to exercise planning judgement. This is why we're here as committee members. And in my case, in my view, I think this is one of the cases where the balance is genuinely really finely poised. The golden rules were introduced, in my opinion, to secure clear and meaningful public benefits, particularly in realms of grey belt locations. In this case, the proposal, I think, in my view, produces a significant shortfall against the 50 % requirement. So while the viability evidence explains why the requirement cannot be met, it does not still, in my opinion, remove the fact that the proposal remains in clear conflict with the golden rules. Therefore, for me, the difficulty lies in the weight that is given to the golden rules. I am not persuaded that the failure to meet the golden rules has been afforded sufficient weight in the overall planning balance, particularly given the importance attached to them when this policy was adopted. This is therefore a tough call and I accept that reasonable people and members and colleagues of this committee may come to a different view. But in my opinion, having weighed the evidence carefully, I do not consider the benefits of the scheme outweighs its failure to comply with the golden rules. And for that reason, I'm unable to support the application. Thank you, Chairman. Councillor Ashman, do you want to come in? I'll amend there a couple of points. Thank you.

Given what one of us said, if I could. Basically, Ben, I mean, I've listened to what you said. I mean, you're talking about the benefits. Are there any identified benefits that are considered exceptional or specific to this site rather than just benefits that would come with any other ordinary residential developments? I'm trying to ascertain because you're talking about balances and all the benefits I'm hearing is, well, they could apply to any site in Buckinghamshire. Why is it so special about the benefits on this site that we should balance it towards going against the golden rules? Thank you. It's not necessarily...