Wiltshire Council legal challenge on development at Old Sarum Airfield
- RW
- Mar 6
- 2 min read
UPDATE
On the BBC website (but not yet on Wiltshire Council's site) is a news report dated 5 March that the appeal against allowing 315 new houses to be built on the Old Sarum Airfield site was dismissed:
"Plans to build hundreds of homes on a former World War One airfield have moved a step closer to reality, after the High Court rejected a challenge by Wiltshire Council.
The council argued the circumstances surrounding the development of Old Sarum, near Salisbury, had changed after a listed aircraft hangar there was destroyed by a fire in April 2025.
But Mrs Justice Lang disagreed, finding the Planning Inspectorate's original decision allowing the 315-home development to go ahead, which was issued days before the fire, was neither unjust nor unfair."
Earlier Newspost
Wiltshire Council has today (Wednesday 21 May) launched a legal challenge against the Planning Inspectorate's decision to allow an appeal and grant planning permission for residential development at Old Sarum Airfield.
"The outline application, for around 315 residential dwellings and a mixture of employment, commercial, leisure and aviation, was originally refused by the council's Strategic Planning Committee in August 2024.
The committee initially refused the application for several reasons, including concerns over highways issues and access to the site, and the close proximity to the Old Sarum Scheduled Ancient Monument and its surrounding Conservation Area.
The applicant decided to appeal against the council's decision and following a lengthy public inquiry earlier this year, an independent Planning Inspector decided that the harm was capable of being mitigated and therefore allowed the appeal and granted planning permission.
Only days after the appeal was allowed, a Grade II* listed World War I aircraft hangar on the site, which was central to the appeal decision, was destroyed by fire.
Cllr Adrian Foster, Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Development Management and Housing, said: The basis on which the decision was made to allow the appeal has altered following the devastating fire to the listed aircraft hangar at Old Sarum Airfield.
Following legal advice, in light of the unusual circumstances surrounding this case, we have taken the decision to launch a legal challenge against the Planning Inspector's decision.
We have applied to the court to challenge the decision and we now wait to hear whether it will proceed to hearing."
Our earlier News post gave details of the fire, the smoke from which could be seen in Stratford sub Castle: