Grey belt does not mean automatic planning permission. A South Nutfield grey belt appeal has been dismissed even though the parties agreed, and the Inspector accepted, that the land fell within the grey-belt definition.
The problem arose inside Policy GB7 itself. Appeal 6009966 concerned permission in principle for up to five homes at Chedworth, Coopers Hill Road. The Inspector found that the site failed the policy’s sustainable-location requirement, so the Green Belt exception was not available and the development remained inappropriate.
Permission in principle for up to five homes
The application, reference TA/2025/954, sought permission in principle for residential development of up to five dwellings at Chedworth, Coopers Hill Road, South Nutfield.
Tandridge District Council refused the proposal. Inspector Barry John Lomax dismissed the appeal on 18th September 2026.
A previous PIP appeal for nine dwellings on the site had also been dismissed in November 2025. The Inspector regarded the earlier decision as an important material consideration because the accessibility circumstances had not materially changed.
Grey-belt status was not the disputed point
The parties agreed that the site met the Framework definition of grey belt, and the Inspector agreed with them.
That did not complete the assessment. For the relevant development route, Policy GB7(1)(g) contains additional requirements. They operate cumulatively. A site can therefore be grey belt and still fail to benefit from the policy exception if one of the remaining criteria is not met.
The Inspector found that the proposal would not fundamentally undermine the purposes of the remaining Green Belt across the wider area and accepted that there was a clear unmet housing need because the council could not demonstrate a five-year housing land supply.
The appeal failed on the next part of the test: whether the development was in a sustainable location.
Why the location failed Policy GB7
The edge of South Nutfield was around 800 metres away, with many services a similar distance further on. The walking and cycling environment was the real difficulty.
Coopers Hill Road and Kings Cross Lane did not provide continuous footways or street lighting. Pedestrians and cyclists would have to share the carriageway with motor traffic. The evidence about the local hail-and-ride bus service did not establish a sufficiently useful pattern of frequency, hours, destinations or reliability.
The Inspector concluded that future occupiers would be heavily dependent on private cars. The proposal therefore failed to support a sustainable pattern of development and did not provide a genuine choice of transport modes.
That meant criterion GB7(1)(g)(iii) was not satisfied.
Why sustainability could be decided at PIP stage
This was a permission-in-principle application, so detailed design matters were not before the Inspector. That did not prevent the Inspector from considering whether the site was sustainably located.
PIP is concerned with the suitability in principle of the location, land use and amount of development. Accessibility to settlements and everyday services goes directly to the suitability of the location itself. It did not need to be postponed to technical details consent.
Once GB7 failed, the normal Green Belt harms mattered
Because the development did not satisfy the relevant GB7 route, it remained inappropriate development in the Green Belt. That harm carried substantial weight.
The Inspector also found that building up to five homes on an undeveloped paddock would materially reduce both the spatial openness and the open appearance of the land. It would introduce domestic development and activity and would conflict with the Green Belt purpose of safeguarding the countryside from encroachment.
There was also significant harm to the character and appearance of the area.
Housing need was not enough to amount to very special circumstances
The shortfall in housing land supply gave substantial weight to the benefit of providing up to five homes. The economic benefits attracted moderate weight.
Those benefits did not clearly outweigh the Green Belt harm, loss of openness, countryside encroachment, character harm and unsustainable travel pattern. Very special circumstances were therefore not demonstrated.
Appeal 6009966 was dismissed.
South Nutfield and Hurst Green are different grey-belt lessons
It would be easy to reduce both recent Tandridge decisions to the headline “grey-belt housing appeal dismissed”. That would miss the important distinction.
- At Hurst Green, the 132-home scheme cleared the Green Belt route and failed later on a separate residential-amenity and evidence problem
- At South Nutfield, the proposal failed within the GB7 route because the sustainable-location requirement was not met
The practical message is that grey-belt status is only one stage in the policy analysis. Where the chosen GB7 route contains additional criteria, they still need to be satisfied.
What should applicants check?
- Do not stop at the grey-belt definition
- Work through every limb of the relevant GB7 route
- Test walking, cycling and public-transport conditions on the ground rather than by distance alone
- For a PIP proposal, remember that the sustainability of the location can be determined before detailed design
- If a GB7 criterion fails, consider the consequences for inappropriate-development harm, openness and very special circumstances
Read the full South Nutfield appeal decision hosted by Planning Geek.
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