Land south of Warren Lane, Hurst Green

6004144·Tandridge·17 Sept 2026dismissed·2025/613

Tier label used

category 1 settlement

The tier sentence ¶18

“identified as a category 1 settlement and acknowledged by the Council to be a large built up area”

Summary

132 homes (50% affordable) on a contained field at the edge of Hurst Green/Oxted, decided after a two-day hearing. The inspector found the site was grey belt and passed all four GB7(1)(g) limbs, including sustainable location and the Golden Rules, so the scheme was not inappropriate. The station route GB7(1)(h) failed on walking distance. The appeal was still dismissed, on odour from the adjoining wastewater works, which arose late through a Southern Water objection. Odour harm "substantially outweighed" the benefits under S5(1)(j). A separate costs decision (costs PDF, 21 Sep 2026) awarded Wates full costs against Tandridge for unreasonable grey belt, sustainability and heritage reasons.

The location finding

GB7(1)(g)(iii): pass. daily services within 1.7 km; bus stops 430-530 m; pleasant walking routes; cycling possible; Connectivity Tool read in local context (DL 28-32)

Why this is cited

Category 1 status used to characterise Oxted as a large built-up area for grey-belt purpose (a): counted against the site. In the register this counts as a case where the tier counted against the site.

Sources

Decision on the Planning Inspectorate appeals service · full decision note · letter pins-corpus/6004144.txt

One entry in a register of 203 decisions that matched the search for a settlement-tier label, each read at every matching passage and classified by how the label influenced the decision. The quotation was checked against the source named above. Not legal advice. © Planning Distilled. Text, data and images on this page are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: share and adapt them freely, with credit to Planning Distilled. Quotations from decision letters, plans and the Framework remain the copyright of their publishers. Source and data: github.com/planningdistilled/research.