A proposal for up to 200 homes on Green Belt land west of Charlton Road in Keynsham has been backed by Bath & North East Somerset’s Planning Committee after officers concluded that the site was grey belt and satisfied the NPPF 2026 Golden Rules.
The committee voted 5–4 on 2nd September 2026 in support of the outline scheme. Importantly, the council’s planning register still records the application as pending: the resolution is to delegate permission subject to conditions and completion of a Section 106 agreement, rather than evidence that a final planning permission has already been issued.
The planning interest is not the narrow politics of the vote. It is how the new grey-belt framework changed the Green Belt analysis and, at the same time, demanded a materially higher level of affordable housing.
What is proposed at Charlton Road?
Application 25/04952/EOUT is an outline application for up to 200 homes, Class E floorspace, open space, strategic landscaping, earthworks, drainage and associated infrastructure on land west of Charlton Road. All matters are reserved except access.
The site lies next to Keynsham but within the Green Belt. That makes the way the council applied the current NPPF 2026 central to the decision.
Grey belt changed the starting point
Under NPPF 2026 policy GB7, certain development on grey belt land is not treated as inappropriate development in the Green Belt where all of the policy tests are met.
The officer report assessed the application site itself and concluded that it did not strongly contribute to the relevant Green Belt purposes identified by GB7. Officers therefore treated it as grey belt.
That did not make the Green Belt designation disappear. Nor did it create an automatic permission. Instead it moved the proposal into the rules-based GB7 route, requiring the council to test housing need, sustainability and, for major housing development, compliance with policy GB8.
A 2.5-year housing land supply mattered directly
Bath & North East Somerset could demonstrate only around 2.5 years of housing land supply. That shortfall was important in more than one part of the planning balance.
For the grey-belt route, GB7 requires evidenced unmet need. The officer report concluded that this test was met because the council could not demonstrate a five-year supply and there was an unmet need for housing in the district.
The shortfall also reduced the weight that could be given to out-of-date housing policies. Planning Geek’s guide to the five-year housing land supply explains why this figure can have such a significant effect on decision-making.
The Golden Rules raised affordable housing from 30% to 45%
This is perhaps the clearest illustration of how the new policy cuts both ways.
Bath & North East Somerset’s Policy CP9 would ordinarily require 30% affordable housing on a major development at Keynsham. But because this is major housing development using the Green Belt grey-belt route, NPPF policy GB8 applies.
Until a Green Belt-specific affordable housing requirement is established through the local plan, GB8 requires a contribution 15 percentage points above the highest existing requirement that would otherwise apply, subject to the national cap.
That takes this scheme from 30% to 45% affordable housing — potentially up to 90 homes if all 200 dwellings are delivered.
Officers described that provision as a substantial and compelling public benefit and gave it significant weight in the planning balance. They also recorded that, as of August 2026, 765 households on the HomeSearch Register named Keynsham as their first preference for affordable housing.
Our separate guide explains how affordable housing requirements are normally secured and negotiated.
Golden Rules are not only about affordable housing
Policy GB8 also requires the necessary improvements to infrastructure and accessible green space, alongside the affordable housing requirement.
The council therefore looked at proposed highways works to Charlton Road, education contributions, open space, landscape and green infrastructure rather than treating the 45% affordable housing offer as a complete answer on its own.
The officer report concluded that the scheme satisfied the Golden Rules and that the site could benefit from the grey-belt exception in GB7.
Under the current Framework, substantial weight is to be given to the importance of complying with those Golden Rules. That is a significant change in the structure of the Green Belt decision-making exercise and is covered in our comparison of the 2024 and 2026 NPPF.
Why this is not simply a case of councillors being forced to approve
The new policy materially altered the planning balance, but it did not remove the council’s decision-making role.
Officers still had to decide whether this particular land met the grey-belt definition, whether there was evidenced unmet housing need, whether the location was sustainable, whether the Golden Rules were met and how other planning impacts should be weighed.
The result was a recommendation to delegate permission subject to conditions and a Section 106 agreement. Members narrowly backed that recommendation.
So the better planning-law lesson is not that Green Belt housing is now automatically acceptable. It is that where land qualifies for GB7 and the development satisfies GB8, the national policy framework can remove the normal inappropriate-development barrier while simultaneously increasing what the development must deliver in return.
The application is not yet a final planning permission
As at 4th September 2026, the council’s application record continues to show 25/04952/EOUT as pending decision. The committee outcome is therefore best described as a resolution to permit, or to delegate permission, subject to the Section 106 agreement and conditions.
Planning Geek will update this article if and when a formal decision notice is issued.
Primary sources
Bath & North East Somerset’s application record for 25/04952/EOUT contains the submitted material and current status.
Planning Geek hosts local copies of the council’s Planning Committee report and committee update report. These set out the detailed policy analysis and the final committee update. The current National Planning Policy Framework was published on 17th August 2026.
Created: 4th September 2026 | Keynsham grey belt
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