SOUTH Hams Council’s development management committee has granted permission for a development of 74 homes on the western edge of Ivybridge.

Councillors said they had no reason to refuse the application by Persimmon Homes for the site off Cornwood Road and Woodland Road, after the housebuilder made changes to its plans.

The committee meeting on Wednesday was the fourth time councillors had discussed proposed homes on the site, having repeatedly rejected Persimmon’s plans before on the basis of bad design.

After finally refusing the scheme earlier this year, South Hams Council received a new application earlier this summer, with slightly fewer houses and minor tweaks to the layout. With all its previous reasons for refusal addressed in the new plans, the committee felt it had no choice but to approve.

Ivybridge resident Steve Pitcher had addressed the committee as an objector throughout its discussions. He said there was no local support for the plan, and many people felt this was ’a stitch up’ as the site, and indeed several fields north of it, were included in proposed locations for development in the draft joint local plan.

If approved, the joint local plan envisages hundreds of houses on these fields, and Mr Pitcher felt this should be taken into account when considering the impact on flooding and infrastructure like roads and schools.

But council officers said the committee could only consider this application, and not any future development.

Mr Pitcher called the proposals ’a foot in the door for a greedy developer’, and said this was ’not planning, it’s plonking a few houses in a field’.

While South Hams Council insists the sites in the joint local plan remain under consultation, it earlier confirmed that all the suggested sites would need to be developed in order to meet housing targets. If locals reject sites in the plan, new ones will have to be found.

More to follow.