It's more complicated than that. The big problem for larger schemes is the considerable up-front costs of applying for, then obtaining planning permission, and that there's no guarantee that a permission will be granted. If the landowner is (very) wealthy, they might do it themselves. Often landowners will get no further than promoting their land for designation in the Local Plan for the area as a site to be designated for development, and then seek some kind of agreement with a developer under which the developer agrees to fund and pursue the planning application itself, and either agrees to buy the land conditional upon obtaining the permission within an agreed time limit, or is given the option to buy at something of a discount to reflect the fact that they have put in investment at risk in pursuing a planning application. Quite often the developer will take its agreement at the stage that sites are being selected in the Local Plan, as this process can be protracted and expensive as the plan has to be examined by a planning inspector, for example if the plan is subject to challenge through the courts, or if there are competing sites being put forward and the authority or inspector has to choose between them.

In the last couple of decades a new type of player in the market has emerged. These are land promoters. They use risk capital to promote sites through the local plan and planning application process, and if the whole process is successful, the site is sold and they get a share of the sale price as their reward. This has provided a supply of sites available to build, without the actual builder/developer having to tie up risk capital in promoting the land through these processes with no guarantee of success. The large national housebuilders have different overall business strategies as to how much they invest in what is known as strategic land, and how much they prefer instead to buy (to use the industry term) "oven-ready" sites.

If you are a promoter or well advised landowner going the whole hog and getting a planning permission, you would be well advised to get an outline permission and sell with the benefit of this. Each developer has its own idea of what will sell, its corporate style image and (in most cases) standard house-types that it will want to use, so in most greenfield sites it is a waste of money to approval of the details before a sale. There's a little risk left though at the outline planning stage, as it can take a long time to get those reserved matters approvals needed to start on site.



Correct - this was shortened from 5 years by the Blair regime, just in time for the 2008 crash, which meant that there were a number of sites with no buyers, or buyers with no cash to implement with time running against them. However, all you need do in that time is implement the permission - take  some initial step such as cutting some foundations, to keep the permission alive if you have cleared off all the pre-start conditions and obtained the reserved matters approvals.

But if you have invested all that resource in obtaining the planning and approvals and buying the land, that money is burning a hole in your pocket, so you have every commercial incentive to build and sell at a price and rate the market will bear to get your money back. Closing a site for a volume housebuilder is very much a last resort, not least because re-opening it incurs further expense.

The Paignton scheme is interesting. I see it's a mixed scheme of retail, industrial and warehousing that was granted outline permission in 2016 pursuant to a 2014 application on a major redundant office site. From the planning history it looks like quite a bit of the other elements have been built. The permission seems to have been obtained by a not very substantial company. The residential elements are still up for sale as far as I can see. I assume that approval of reserved matters for a full (in theory) ready-to-build scheme has been obtained to keep the permission alive for the residential part of the scheme. There must be something that has put off the any housebuilding company from buying - it could be any one of a number of things - the party promoting the scheme may have designed something that no-one can make work financially in the local market, the presence of an adjoining busy retail/commercial site might hit sales values, or their due diligence has disclosed technical problems that has scared off buyers.

As the permission in the 2016 permission has been implemented, it is still a live permission, but it's an unusual animal to still be there unbuilt. This is not a housebuilder sitting on a site, it's a landowner, promoter or commercial developer who cannot sell it for development. They might (of course) have already got the money they have spent buying and promoting the site back by building or selling the other elements.

 

 
From the BBC:

 
If outline planning permission with reserved matters 3 years. If you then submit detailed planning permission (reserved matters in the outline) then another 2 years. If you apply for permission with all the details then 3 years.

In big developments land owners or potential landowners apply for outline planning permission, get it, then sell to a builder to actually do the work.

Problems arise when a developer applies for planning permission and don't own all the land in the application.

 
Bentley Model Railway Exhibition, Calne, 10th and 11th May 2025
https://www.facebook.com/events/2491289111078089/2491290604411273/

18 layouts, a dozen traders, zero railway stations nearby to get there by train

 
Not rural - but hopefully topical:

We moved to our new home in Nailsea, just over a year ago.  The road from which ours is a crescent off was on a bus route.  However, at the beginning of the first lockdown, that bus route was suspended - and never reinstated. I think the bus company were actually rather grateful to Covid, for giving them an excuse to quietly drop that particular service, without any of the locals raising a quibble.

To be fair, we are within just a few minutes level walk on footpaths to Nailsea's High Street and local facilities, and I suspect the financial realities of that historic rather convoluted bus route, from the end of our road, were therefore rather an embarrassment to the bus company.

As an aside comment, there are no bus services between our house and our local railway station in Backwell - no problem, it's a twenty minute walk: good for my health. 

CfN.

 

Grahame they also released a separate report looking a express coach service from Carmarthen to Bangor via Aberystwyth  in addition to the T1/T2 bus service. 

 
I've been following this one up ...

Originally booked on the 17:23 due into Grateley at 18:38  ... that train has been removed from the timetable, with a new one added in at 17:22 with - I suspect - another stop or two and not reaching Grateley until 18:43 - five minutes later than the original train.

It would appear that the SWR have prioritised arrival time at Grateley and move passengers due into Grateley at 18:38 onto the train earlier - 16:50 off Waterloo. 

Looking through the small print which has been copied to me it does say that "your ticket will be accepted on the train before or the train after the one that is not running" and on that basis I have advised "just turn up for the train at 17:22". 

Good on SWR for notifying of the change / later arrival, but what a screwed up way of doing it, with a threat of ticket change fees if you don't like the new headline times!

 
Going rather off-topic again here (I can, because I'm an administrator! ), I'm reminded of a joke from that great comedian from Cornwall, Jethro (real name, Geoffrey Rowe) with a broad West Country accent:

"Why do they grow so many potatoes in Wiltshire?  Because there they have Devizes for Chippenham!" 

 
I'd like to think depots have an idea what kit is on the trains they service. If also like to think they have a service schedule.

If AEDs are to be fitted to trains I'm sure they won't just be put onboard and forgotten about.

 
And if 10,000 houses are built around Parkway as projected, even more services might be needed!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-67214450

 

 
Which Tuesday in March were you trying, coz all the advances will be likely different availability....

 
But can't tell whether there's/there'll be a defib on board, nor what serial number it is & whether it needs a battery change.

 

Surely depots have systems that tell them what's going to turn up that night

 
 That'll be a fairly major business case!

Electrification: Didcot - Oxford/Hanborough
Second Platform Hanborough
Dualling Wolvercot - Charlbury

 
From the BBC:

 

Their search map is unreachable. Try this

 
Careful, you'll be declared a MSM keyboard warrior!

Seriously, exactly the sort of problem that I've been referring to.

I thought domestic planning consent was for 5 years before it lapsed, not three?

 

Thank you - that has answered one of my long-time unanswered but unasked questions that I've pondered for sometime!

 
The area in question was an old sand quarry - so likely a burst pipe (confirmed by SES Water) washing away sand(stone) quite quickly.

I feel for the owner of the house immediately to the left of the hole in that photo above. Its only ben built three years...

 
In the days when I was ambulant, I attended their meetings fairly frequently. More difficult now as they meet some way away from rail stations

 
Indeed they do - but no way of tracking where or which depot that train is at at the point of requiring service.

So do you give the job of tracking the defibs to some depot manager who passes on the defib info if/when that train gets seconded or transferred, possibly across country. Not only do you need to advise the company providing battery support, but the 999 operator.

Not exactly straight forward

 
Tickets (free) via Eventbrite .. for organisations, groups to send reps and for unattached individuals with a strong interest.  Please ask me if you need a more formal invite.  Worded that way to avoid getting the entire membership of the Stogumber Night Bus Campaign coming along and drowning the meeting - a rep and an understudy is plentry.

 
TravelWatch NorthWest is a cousin of our own TravelWatch SouthWest and I have been along once or twice in the past to learn about how they do things and to pick up national ideas - and we have welcomed their directors at TWSW too.  Knowing we get some out-of-area guests in our Taunton meetings, adding the TWNW dates here just in case


As someone bred and born in Southport, and Lisa and I spend the first night of our honeymoon there, I have a fondness for the place.

 
Generally LTV trains are DOO, Driver Only Operation. Gatwick, Marlow and I think Basingstoke are driver and guard.
All West services are also driver and one guard.

A single IET outside of the LTV area requires a minimum of driver and guard. When catering is provided in theory it's 2 customer hosts per set, first class and trolley operator. When it's a ten car then one of the customer hosts in the front set must be a lead host in case of an emergency. The TM is allowed to swap between sets for revenue duties as long as there is a lead host in both sets.

Finally add all the wasteful travelling that takes place. In theory drivers just advise the TM or guard and sit down. The other grades are supposed to other assistance, pushing the trolley or checking tickets.

As a comparison on ČD any service with a restaurant car has a chef, waiter for the restaurant coach and another for taking a trolley through second class and offering an at seat service in first class. Nothing beats a goulash polévka then veal, lentils and vegetables and 33cl can of craft beer being served at your seat at a steady 90 MPH for about £12.

PS The ham and eggs breakfast is highly recommended.

 
I recall visiting the old Wadsworth Brewery in Devizes on a 6th form 'A' Level economics 'educational' trip.  We had a brilliant economics teacher who was also head of the 6th form.  The brewery were quite generous with their free sampling in the tap room at the end of the tour I recall.  Made the coach journey back to Bristol quite jolly.

 
Our next door neighbour was recently in conversation with a old local who recalled playing as a child in the area that our row of 3 houses was built on in the 1960s.  It was a small old quarry but abandoned many years before.  The recollection was that there was some kind of small well in the corner where my neighbours house now stands.  They weren't aware of it from any surveys though and off course, in a child's imagination, a modest pit in an old quarry site could be transformed into a well.
There's certainly been no sign of any subsidence or any further indication of it despite extensive excavation work carried out around the property over the years.... but the comment certainly caught their attention!

 

Grim

No doubt "lessons will be learned" etc blah blah

 

When new properties are added (as it seems in the Godstone case) water companies can increase the pressure in the main which leads to burst pipes; something else to add to their ongoing charge sheet if that is the case.