THE Mayor of Cirencester has said accepting fresh plans for a significantly reduced 21-home development on the Humpty Dumps could save the “greater part” of the beloved site in future.

At a town council planning meeting last Thursday, Mayor Mark Harris weighed up the possible benefits of the new plans, with developers having assured him the remainder of the land would be gifted back to the town.

This comes despite Cllr Harris saying in September “the door is very nearly closed on the developer, if not shut” after plans for 69 homes were rejected by Cotswold District Council (CDC).

In January 2010, Baylight Properties had initially submitted a proposal to build 100 houses at the site in between The Whiteway and Bowling Green Avenue, which was rejected by CDC.

The reduced 69-home development was also rejected by the district council, again on the grounds that it would cause substantial harm to the character of the site.

The Humpty Dumps is given protection rights as a designated Special Landscape Area (SLA).

An email signed by town councillors Harris, Jonathan Wells and Nigel Robbins in September indicated that it was believed it would be “difficult for a subsequent application to come forward – the door is very nearly closed on the developer, if not shut.”

At the meeting on Thursday, CTC planning committee members voted to recommend refusal of the application, which is due to be decided by CDC later this year.

However, Cllr Harris warned that if it is dismissed by CDC “it’s not gone away forever, it just means that it’s parked until circumstances change”.

He said: “The National Planning Policy for this government, and it will be the same for any other government, is to build many many more houses. They're not going to go: ‘Oh, let's relax it’ – the pressure is on.

“So the danger is in five years’ time another application comes in and it could be 69 or 70 and it could get through because the national situation has changed.

“There's not the policy to support it or there's not an adequate housing supply.”

Cllr Harris and committee chairman Stuart Tarr had met with the developer’s agents Hunter Page Planning on February 8.

Cllr Harris said they were assured that Baylight would “gift the land to either the town council or the community land trust or whatever is the most appropriate vehicle” – if the reduced application was accepted.

“And that would mean that all that land would be saved, the greater part of the Humpty Dumps,” he said.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Tarr told the Standard: "CTC has objected to this application on policy grounds, principally that the Humpty Dumps has been designated as an area of Special Landscape Value to protect it from speculative development.

"But there is a reality here that such designations do not guarantee absolute protection as we have seen in this new application to build a very much reduced development that would protect the greater part of the Humpty Dumps in perpetuity from further development by gifting the land to the town council or a community land trust for use as a recreation area.

"This is an issue which local residents and the district council will have to weigh very carefully.

"To continue to object to the development and refuse planning permission, risking a further appeal by the developer with, arguably, a better chance of succeeding than before.

"Or to grant planning permission thereby protecting the Humpty Dumps in perpetuity from the threat of further development or encroachment on to this much-loved piece of land."