Ministers have allowed the recovered appeal at Snarlton Farm, Melksham, granting outline planning permission for up to 300 dwellings, land for community use, open space, play space and associated infrastructure. The decision, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 28 July 2026, was made by Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook on behalf of the Secretary of State. (gov.uk) The appeal related to land south of Snarlton Farm and challenged Wiltshire Council’s refusal of application PL/2024/07097. The scheme keeps all matters reserved apart from two pedestrian and vehicle accesses from Eastern Way, which means the principle of development is now established while the detailed form of the scheme will still return through reserved matters applications. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The procedural history is important. Wiltshire Council refused the application on 5 August 2025. A public local inquiry opened on 20 January 2026, and on 29 January 2026 the appeal was recovered for determination by the Secretary of State because it involved residential development over the threshold that government treats as potentially significant for housing supply objectives. The inspector then recommended that permission should be granted. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) One of the council’s original refusal points fell away during the appeal. The inspector recorded that completion of the section 106 obligation on 5 February 2026 resolved the infrastructure reason for refusal, leaving the main dispute focused on spatial policy and the site’s position beyond Melksham’s settlement boundary. The decision letter also notes that an environmental statement had been submitted, but a screening direction dated 17 November 2025 found the proposal was not EIA development, so that statement was not taken into account in the final decision. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The Secretary of State accepted that the proposal conflicts with the development plan in a clear respect. The site lies beyond Melksham’s settlement boundary, and the decision letter agrees with the inspector that this puts the scheme in conflict with Wiltshire Core Strategy policies CP2 and CP15 and Joint Melksham Neighbourhood Plan 2 Policy 6. On a strict plan-led reading, the site was not treated as an appropriate location for the proposed development. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) That did not mean every impact issue counted against the scheme. The decision letter agrees that landscape harm would be limited and mainly localised, and it records no unacceptable conflict on flooding, highway safety, heritage, access to services or connectivity. The Secretary of State did, however, attach moderate weight to the loss of best and most versatile agricultural land, accepting that the affected area was likely to be close to half the site, or about 9 hectares. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The balance changed because of housing supply. For this appeal, the inspector accepted the appellant’s case that Wiltshire could demonstrate only 2.16 years of deliverable housing supply rather than the council’s 2.42-year figure. In the inspector’s assessment, that left a shortfall equivalent to 10,405 dwellings over the relevant five-year period, which the Secretary of State described as very significant. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) That supply position gave substantial weight to the housing benefits. The scheme can provide up to 300 dwellings, including up to 90 affordable homes. The inspector’s report also recorded unchallenged evidence of acute affordable housing need in Wiltshire, including delivery at around 577 affordable homes a year since 2009/10 against higher assessed need figures in the evidence base. The decision letter says both the market housing and affordable housing elements should carry significant weight if the site is brought forward promptly. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The decision is also notable for its treatment of neighbourhood plan policy after a change in the wider plan-making context. Joint Melksham Neighbourhood Plan 2 was made in August 2025, so the Secretary of State expressly considered paragraph 14 of the National Planning Policy Framework and accepted that conflict with the neighbourhood plan had to be taken seriously. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) However, both the inspector and the Secretary of State placed weight on Wiltshire Council’s withdrawal of its emerging local plan from examination on 22 May 2026 after the examining inspectors raised significant soundness concerns, some of them strategic and housing-related. Because the neighbourhood plan’s housing figure had been derived from that emerging plan, the decision concludes there was no longer a sound basis for treating that requirement as reliable for current needs in Melksham. In practice, that is why conflict with the neighbourhood plan was found not to be determinative in this case. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The permission is tied to a detailed package of obligations. The completed section 106 deed requires at least 30 per cent affordable housing, split between 60 per cent affordable rent, 15 per cent shared ownership and 25 per cent First Homes. It also secures contributions or works connected to biodiversity monitoring, bus services, a community building, primary or early years provision, medical floorspace, rail station accessibility, sports provision, public rights of way, highway works, travel plan measures, public art and waste and recycling equipment. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) The conditions are equally material. Reserved matters must include a detailed housing mix and a final sustainable energy strategy, with further controls covering drainage, archaeology, tree protection, ecological management and transport works. The inspector’s recommended conditions also require a toucan crossing and bus stop before first occupation, an extension to the shared walking and cycling route along Eastern Way before occupation of the 150th dwelling, and delivery of the community use site by occupation of the 200th dwelling. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
For Wiltshire, the ruling is less about a single site than about the combined effect of an out-of-date settlement boundary, a severe five-year supply deficit and a withdrawn emerging local plan. The Secretary of State still found conflict with the development plan as a whole, but concluded that the Framework’s presumption in favour of sustainable development applied because the adverse effects did not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) The wider lesson, by inference from the decision letter and inspector’s report, is that recently made neighbourhood plans remain important but do not provide an automatic barrier where their housing requirement rests on an abandoned strategic plan and the authority cannot show an adequate pipeline of deliverable sites. For councils, appellants and parish bodies, the case shows how quickly the weight given to local spatial policy can change when the evidence on housing supply and plan status moves against it. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)