PLANS to build a 200-home mini village south of Billericay have been approved at appeal despite an inspector saying it would cause harm.

The scheme on green belt land north of Kennel Lane was rejected by Basildon Council last year.

But developer Gleeson Land has won a government appeal against council, with a planning inspector overturning the ruling and highlighting the council’s “enormous shortfall in delivery of homes over the next five-year period”.

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The proposals will see 200 new homes built, 72 of which will be affordable, with new vehicle access comprising a new arm off the Laindon Road, A176 and Noak Hill Road roundabout to the development.

In his ruling, the inspector admitted the plans will cause a “moderate level of harm to the openness” of Billericay’s green belt, but added the scheme was necessary to meet house building targets.

“Evidence demonstrates that in terms of overall housing delivery, the borough is the seventh poorest performing out of the 328 local authorities nationally,” the inspector wrote.

The plans have been opposed by campaign groups against development.

A spokesman for Billericay Action Group (BAG), a group of non-party political volunteers campaigning on planning matters, said: “It highlights all that's wrong with the current planning system which allows development in the green belt.

“We are optimistic changes being proposed by the Government will close the loopholes in the system that speculative developers can exploit.

“But we should not forget this is 200 houses out of the nearly 3,000 that were being proposed for Billericay’s green belt in the withdrawn local plan.

“We might see further speculative green belt development in the short term but not to the scale that could have happened if the previous local plan had continued to adoption.”

Councillors voted to scrap Basildon’s 18,000-home local plan in March, with work underway on a new plan expected to be complete within five years.

In the meantime, developers have lodged a number of bids to build on sites identified for development in the previous plan.

In November, P&A Investments and P D Developments submitted a planning application detailing the major plans for 150 homes and a 50-bed care home on land northeast of Potash Road, Billericay.