Plans for up to 138 Hardwick homes south of St Neots Road have been refused by South Cambridgeshire District Council’s Planning Committee. The vote on 14th October 2026 concerns a field beside the village in England, where the applicants sought outline permission for housing, access and associated infrastructure.
The council has confirmed the Hardwick homes committee decision, but says the formal decision notice still needs to be finalised and issued. For neighbours and prospective purchasers, the immediate position is that this scheme has not secured permission. The published officer report recommended refusal over countryside development and surface-water drainage.
I would keep those two stages separate: we can report today’s committee outcome, while the final notice will establish the formal wording of the refusal. The proposal also raises a practical question for village-edge landowners: how much does an offer of new homes help when the council disputes the need to release this particular site?
What the Hardwick homes application proposed
Application 26/01263/OUT was submitted by Pidgeon and the Landowners. It sought approval for the principle of development and the primary access onto St Neots Road. Appearance, landscaping, layout and scale were left for later consideration as reserved matters.
That means the committee was not being asked to approve every house design. It was being asked whether a housing development of this size should be accepted here at all, with the main access settled at the outline stage.
The published committee report describes grassland with hedgerows and scattered boundary trees. Existing homes lie to the north and east, with open fields to the south and west. Officers treated the land as open countryside outside Hardwick’s defined development framework, rather than as Green Belt.
That distinction matters. Land does not have to be Green Belt for a housing proposal to encounter a serious policy objection. A settlement boundary can still help determine where a local plan expects development to go. Our guide to local plans explains that wider role.
Housing supply was a central disagreement
The Hardwick homes case relied on the applicant’s argument that there was a housing land-supply shortfall. Officers disagreed. Their report referred to an updated assessment placing South Cambridgeshire’s supply at around 7.8 years for 2026 to 2031.
A housing land-supply assessment asks whether identified sites can deliver enough homes over the relevant period. It is an evidence question about delivery, rather than a statement that everyone already has suitable accommodation or that affordable housing is unnecessary.
The report acknowledged benefits from the proposed affordable homes and self/custom-build plots. Its assessment nevertheless concluded that those benefits did not overcome the objection to releasing this unallocated countryside site.
I would not read that as a finding that every housing application around Hardwick must fail. It is the council’s assessment of this proposal, its evidence and its location. An applicant relying on a supply shortfall needs to address the council’s current calculation and the delivery evidence behind it.
Countryside character and drainage remained concerns
The recommended refusal reasons for the Hardwick homes scheme included harm to rural character and the established village edge. Officers considered that extending housing onto this land would conflict with the plan’s approach to directing development to sustainable locations.
The report also identified an unresolved surface-water issue. Although it placed the site in Flood Zone 1, the lowest river and sea flood-risk category, the county flood authority maintained an objection to the drainage proposals. Low river-flood risk does not settle how rainfall will be collected, stored and discharged within a development.
Officers recommended a refusal reason over the integration of drainage measures into the design and whether potential flooding within the site could be adequately mitigated. These are the published recommendations; the issued notice should be checked for the final reasons and any changes to their wording.
The same report found the main access acceptable. That is useful context because a refusal can involve several different judgements: an acceptable entrance does not resolve objections to the location, landscape or drainage of the wider scheme.
Eight self-build homes received a different outcome
The meeting did not reject every housing proposal before it. Councillors also approved an outline application for eight homes east of Bells Meadow and south of New Road in Guilden Morden, submitted by Guilden Morden Developments Ltd.
The council’s meeting announcement expressly cautions: “The above decisions are subject to the decision notice being finalised and issued.” That applies to the approval as well as the refusal.
The pre-committee amendment sheet describes the smaller proposal as up to eight self/custom-build dwellings. It records officers’ view that this provision would meet an evidenced need, with the principle acceptable under the national countryside-development policy.
The contrast with the Hardwick homes proposal is about the evidence and type of development considered at each site. A small self-build scheme addressing an identified need and a much larger mixed housing proposal are different planning cases. The committee outcomes alone do not establish a general rule favouring one size of scheme everywhere.
What happens next?
For the Hardwick homes applicants, the formal notice is the next document to read. Any decision about a revised application or appeal should respond to its actual reasons. No appeal has been verified as part of this report, and today’s vote should not be described as an appeal outcome.
For local residents, the committee agenda and supporting papers provide the proposal and officer assessment. The council’s application record should be checked for the issued notice and any subsequent steps. Our planning appeals guide explains the separate appeal process if the applicant chooses that route.
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