Plans for nearly 50 new homes in Castle Cary have been refused by local councillors at the third time of asking.

Castle Cary LVA LLP applied in October 2023 for outline permission to build 46 homes on the B3152 South Street, just north of the town's cemetery.

Somerset Council's planning committee south (which handles major applications in the former South Somerset area) twice delayed a decision on the plans – once in September to clarify their impact on the conservation area, and once in November after a highways officer failed to attend the meeting.

The same committee has now thrown out the plans after a lengthy debate – despite the government raising the council's annual target for delivering new homes.

The proposed homes would have been sandwiched between the existing homes on Cockhill Elm Lane and the cemetery, with pedestrian access being provided onto the former to link up with the Macmillan Way long-distance footpath.

While there are pavements linking the site to the town centre, they are quite narrow in places and there is limited provision for cyclists or mobility scooters.

A total of 16 affordable homes would have been provided as part of the development, meeting the 35 per cent target for affordable homes within the South Somerset Local Plan.

Castle Cary lies within the River Brue catchment area, meaning that developers must secure additional mitigation to prevent any net increase in phosphates on the Somerset Levels and Moors.

To mitigate the impact of the new homes, the developer proposed installing a package treatment plant within the site, managed by Albion Water, which will filter out phosphates from household drains before it enters the watercourse.

Graham House, who lives on South Street, spoke against the plans when the committee convened in Yeovil on December 17, 2024.

He said: "This site is not in the town, and it's nowhere near the direction of growth within the Neighbourhood Plan.

"We all agree there's a shortage of housing land, but what we should look at is the nature and extent of this shortfall – which is not the same everywhere.

"There's the exact opposite of a shortfall in Castle Cary – we've got the growth rate of a primary town like Chard. This is hugely disproportionate."

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was recently revised by the new Labour government, with a standard methodology being introduced to determine how many new homes each council had to deliver in a given year.

As part of its drive to build 1.5 million new homes over the current parliament, the government has upped Somerset's annual housing target from 2,669 to 3,769 – an increase of 41 per cent.

Since the council does not currently have a five-year land supply, any decision to refuse plans for new homes must be accompanied by "strong" reasons for refusal – otherwise the decision could be overturned at an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, incurring potentially significant legal costs to the council.

Local resident Andrew Pate added: "The high levels of approved growth in Castle Cary really should be considered as a reason for tilting the balance towards refusal.

"There are plenty of reasons to refuse this ill-conceived application. You seemed minded to refuse the application in September, and we would say that the evidence supports this."

Councillor Henry Hobhouse (whose Castle Cary division includes the site) said that the sheer volume of new housing which had been delivered in the town over the last decade meant there was no longer any local need for this development.

He said: "We've had 867 houses already completed in Castle Cary – over 400 of those are affordable homes already.

"We have absolutely no need, no housing requirement at all for any extra housing – because we have already got considerably more than our allocated share.

"There has to be a sustainable route for both bicycles and pedestrians into the town centre – and in this case, there isn't.

"We have five steps going down on both sides of the pavement in South Street. We are not allowed to touch those – that is part of our conservation area.

"I ask how this site can possibly be sustainable with what we have in place at this point in time."

Councillor Kevin Messenger (who represents the same division) concurred: "The message is loud and clear: this is not wanted in Castle Cary.

"This sites on the brow of the hill, and will therefore demonstrably harm the lay of the land.

"There's an 18th-century chapel up there where people go and reflect, and they can do so with privacy up there because it's a quiet location.

"It's like the small market towns in Somerset are under siege from opportunistic developers and land agents. We've got to stand up for what's right."

Councillor Martin Wale (Chard North) said: "If you're going to set a minimum number of new homes for a town, there has to be a point, surely, when you've got a maximum?"

Councillor Sue Osborne (Ilminster) added: "This is a modest market town. If you have to change the landscaping in order to make this acceptable, and to reduce the levels the harm, then should we really be passing this in the first place?"

Councillor Oliver Patrick (Coker) disagreed, stating that the need to tackle the housing crisis across Somerset outweighed any local concerns.

He said: "In heritage terms, this site causes less than substantial harm to the conservation area. This delivers considerable benefits by delivering housing that we desperately need in Somerset – I'm quite sanguine about that, and I think we should be too."

After more than an hour's debate, the committee voted to refuse the plans by a margin of five votes to two.

The developer has not yet indicated whether it intends to appeal this decision.