Developer will pay less to community in return for building almost 100 homes in Doncaster village

Councillors narrowly passed the amendments for the site west of an existing housing development at Westminster Drive, to the north of High Street at the entrance of Dunsville.

Planning permission was granted in 2017 and the access road was allowed on appeal.

Harron Homes, who has taken on the development, said the current Section 106 agreement in place meant the site ‘wasn’t financially viable’.

The developer will still have to pay more than £500,000 for affordable housing but money for school places and a travel bond will not have to be paid.

The site will consist of two and two-and-a-half storey homes containing between two and five bedrooms.

An area of formal open space will be situated at the entrance to the development, and a separate informal area to the north east of the site. Further open space will be situated to the west of the site.

Roy Sykes, head of planning at Doncaster Council, said the local authority had instructed an independent valuator to look at the Section 106 proposal and they sided with the developer that it was not financially viable.

Andy Van Vliet, speaking on behalf of Harron Homes, said: “We were pleased to be able to agree on most of the appraisal inputs with the council and we accepted the council’s independent assessors view that the applicant should pay £509,000 as a planning contribution.

“This will be used to pay for three bed, fordable housing on site. We have worked constructively with the council on the design of the scheme.

Planning committee member Coun Duncan Anderson who represents the Hatfield ward, voted against the proposal.

He said: “There’ll be places for schools and no travel bond or contribution for public transport, which were considered necessary to make this viable scheme.

“I accept that the viability of reasonable says that can’t be done but to my mind, that means that scheme isn’t viable as a whole. That’s my thinking on this one.”

Planning councillors voted six to five in favour of approving the scheme.

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