Wiltshire Council bring legal challenge

Wiltshire Council has stated the following

“The outline application, for around 315 residential dwellings and a mixture of employment, commercial, leisure and aviation, was originally refused by the council’s Strategic Planning Committee in August 2024.

The committee initially refused the application for several reasons, including concerns over highways issues and access to the site, and the close proximity to the Old Sarum Scheduled Ancient Monument and its surrounding Conservation Area. 

The applicant decided to appeal against the council’s decision and following a lengthy public inquiry earlier this year, an independent Planning Inspector decided that the harm was capable of being mitigated and therefore allowed the appeal and granted planning permission. 

Only days after the appeal was allowed, a Grade II* listed World War I aircraft hangar on the site, which was central to the appeal decision, was destroyed by fire. 

Cllr Adrian Foster, Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Development Management and Housing, said: “The basis on which the decision was made to allow the appeal has altered following the devastating fire to the listed aircraft hangar at Old Sarum Airfield. 

“Following legal advice, in light of the unusual circumstances surrounding this case, we have taken the decision to launch a legal challenge against the Planning Inspector’s decision. 

“We have applied to the court to challenge the decision and we now wait to hear whether it will proceed to hearing.” 

This news will be well received by many residents of our Parish, who have raised many concerns over the plans to build houses around the edge of the historic Airfield site. With housing development at Old Sarum already identified in sites along the Portway and around the Ray McEnhill Football Stadium, this application would have seen the Ward of Old Sarum, Longhedge and Ford expand further by nearly six hundred houses, with no improvements to key community infrastructure such as health care provision, and as Wiltshire Council have highlighted, would impact on the views from the Old Sarum Ancient Monument, as celebrated in the Telegraph (10 May, 2025) as one of the ‘Best Castles in the UK’ .