← Service Village Does Not Mean Sustainable

D · Tier counted against the site

The Pigs, Leesthorpe Road, Pickwell

6008693·Melton·24 Sept 2026dismissed·25/01286/PIP

Tier label used

smaller service centres / rural hubs

The tier sentence ¶7

“then sequentially to smaller service centres and rural hubs”

Summary

Permission in principle for two self-build homes on a paddock next to, but outside, Pickwell's Limits of Development. The self-build shortfall was accepted as an unmet need, but the site failed S5(1)(j)(i) and TR3. The indicative access is at the far end of a narrow, busy road with no footpath, the village has very few facilities, and the bus is bookable only. With a 7.6-year supply, the benefits were modest and there were no exceptional circumstances under S5(4). Dismissed.

The location finding

  • TR3: fail. access at the far end of a narrow, busy road with no footpath (inspector had to stand in the hedge); only a restricted bookable bus; unlit footpath to Somerby a considerable distance; occupants "heavily reliant on the car" (DL 10-12)

Why this is cited

Sequential hierarchy; rural windfall site; against. In the register this counts as a case where the tier counted against the site.

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.