An inspector has cut 11 village sites from South Norfolk's housing plan, including 40 homes at Wicklewood. Consultation opens on 14 September.

A government inspector has struck 11 housing sites out of the plan that decides where new homes go in South Norfolk’s villages, and the public gets six weeks from 14 September to say what it thinks.

South Norfolk Council announced the consultation on 3 September, but did not say what the inspector had changed. The inspector’s post-hearings letter, published on the examination’s own document library, does. It names every allocation he wants deleted, and it sets out the arithmetic that follows.

The sites he wants deleted

The Village Clusters Housing Allocations Plan allocates housing in the 48 village clusters of South Norfolk, that is the district outside Norwich, outside the four main towns of Wymondham, Diss, Harleston and Long Stratton, and outside the key service centres. Inspector David Reed’s Appendix B lists ten allocations to be removed from the policies map outright, and an eleventh to be cut in half:

  • Wicklewood (WIC1), land south of the primary school: 40 homes. About two miles west of Wymondham.
  • Barford (BAR2), north of the recreation ground, Chapel Street: 40 homes. About three miles north of Wymondham.
  • Barnham Broom (BB1), corner of Norwich Road and Bell Road: 40 homes. About four miles north-west.
  • Bergh Apton (BAP1), the former batching plant, Church Road: 25 homes.
  • Brooke (BRO1), the site east of the B1332 Norwich Road: 25 homes. The rest of the Brooke allocation survives.
  • Rockland St Mary (ROC1), south of New Inn Hill: 25 homes.
  • Barford (BAR1), Cock Street and Watton Road: 19 homes.
  • Ashwellthorpe (ASH1), west of New Road: 15 homes. About three miles south-east of Wymondham.
  • Broome (BRM1), west of Old Yarmouth Road: 12 homes.
  • Seething (SEE1), west of Mill Lane: 12 homes.
  • Burgh St Peter (BUR1), north of Staithe Road: 12 homes.

That is 265 homes taken out. Bergh Apton, Brooke, Rockland St Mary, Broome, Seething and Burgh St Peter are all in the south and east of the district, from 11 to 22 miles from Wymondham.

Against the losses, the inspector wants five sites made bigger: Ditchingham up to 70 homes, Gillingham to 44, Hales to 39, Swardeston to 43 and Spooner Row to 45. Those increases, plus three smaller ones and four carried-forward sites, add 69 homes back. The net position is 196 fewer.

In all he set out 49 main modifications, one for almost every allocation in the plan. Most of the rest are conditions rather than deletions: flood risk assessments, historic environment criteria, Anglian Water requirements and, at Wicklewood’s surviving WIC2 site, a criterion covering a heritage asset.

Homes removed from the South Norfolk Village Clusters plan, by site Bar chart of the eleven allocations the inspector has deleted or partly deleted from the South Norfolk Village Clusters Housing Allocations Plan. Wicklewood WIC1, Barford BAR2 and Barnham Broom BB1 lose 40 homes each. Bergh Apton BAP1, Brooke BRO1 and Rockland St Mary ROC1 lose 25 each. Barford BAR1 loses 19. Ashwellthorpe ASH1 loses 15. Broome BRM1, Seething SEE1 and Burgh St Peter BUR1 lose 12 each. The total is 265 homes. The 265 homes the inspector took out of the village plan Allocations deleted, or partly deleted, from the South Norfolk Village Clusters Housing Allocations Plan Wicklewood WIC140 Barford BAR240 Barnham Broom BB140 Bergh Apton BAP125 Brooke BRO1 (part)25 Rockland St Mary ROC125 Barford BAR119 Ashwellthorpe ASH115 Broome BRM112 Seething SEE112 Burgh St Peter BUR112 Total removed 265 homes 69 added back elsewhere, a net loss of 196 Source: Inspector David Reed, post-hearings letter of 23 March 2026, paragraph 62 and Appendix B. Graphic by Wymondham News.
Three villages lose 40 homes each. Wicklewood's was the single largest site in its cluster, at 2.97 hectares.

Why Wicklewood lost its biggest site

The Wicklewood decision is the one nearest Wymondham, and the letter explains it at length.

The plan proposed two sites in the village. The smaller, WIC2, is 0.89 hectares for at least 12 homes off Hackford Road, and the inspector found it “well-enclosed within the existing framework of the village and is suitable for development”. It stays in.

WIC1 was different. It grew from 1.63 hectares for 30 homes at the first Regulation 19 stage to 2.97 hectares for up to 40 homes in the submitted plan. The inspector called it “much larger than the other allocations”, describing the land as “the eastern third of a large, single, featureless arable field forming a highly visible plateau between Milestone Lane and The Green”.

His objection was that a new estate would run some 200 metres across the full width of the field, with no physical boundary to the west and the site wide open to The Green. It would, he wrote, “fundamentally change the nature of the village”.

He also made a point the village may want to hold him to. Wicklewood has “substantial pockets of undeveloped land within the physical confines of the settlement”, most obviously the glasshouses site, where housing “would have minimal impact on the wider countryside”.

The plan now clears its target by one home

The submitted plan provided for 1,330 homes. After the inspector’s changes, plus the homes he counts from extended settlement limits and from the Diss and District Neighbourhood Plan, his revised total is 1,201.

The Greater Norwich Local Plan requires a minimum of 1,200. The margin is a single home.

The inspector accepted that. He wrote that the total “only just reaches” the requirement but is “sufficient for the plan to meet the tests of soundness in this case”, noting that the wider Greater Norwich plan already carries a surplus of about 4,500 homes above identified need, and that delaying adoption to find more sites would divert resources from the plan’s own review.

The council says he is wrong

South Norfolk Council’s reply, sent on 27 April 2026 by Place Shaping Manager Adam Banham, is unusually blunt for a document of its kind.

The council is “disappointed with many of your conclusions regarding Main Modifications, which it is felt run counter to the evidence presented both prior to and during the hearings”, and “considers that a number of justified allocations have been removed from the plan”.

It also disputes the arithmetic. The council “does not agree with the approach” of using homes arising from settlement-limit adjustments, which are not allocations, to push the total past 1,200. Its own count of the damage is that the deleted and partly deleted sites represent 22% of the dwellings proposed in the submitted plan.

The council said it had started assessing whether higher densities or extended site boundaries could make up the difference.

What it means for you

  • The consultation opens on 14 September 2026 and closes on 26 October. It covers only the main modifications, not the whole plan.
  • Documents go on the council’s consultation site at southnorfolkandbroadland.oc2.uk, with printed copies to view in libraries across the district.
  • Comments are submitted through the council’s portal, but it is the inspector who reads them, before he writes his final report.
  • If you live in one of the 11 villages, this is the stage at which the deletion can still be argued about, in either direction. Landowners and developers get the same six weeks as residents.
  • The council expects the examination to conclude in late 2026 and to consider adopting the plan in early 2027.
  • Nothing here changes what happens to individual planning applications in the meantime. For those, see our page on Wymondham planning news.

Sources

Main modifications are the inspector’s proposals, not decisions. He writes his final report after the consultation, and the council then decides whether to adopt the plan.