Detailed plans for 51 homes off St Andrews Place, Melton, are due a decision by 27 October: nine objections, none in support, and 18 affordable homes.
Detailed plans for 51 homes on the field behind St Andrews Place in Melton are due a decision from East Suffolk Council by Tuesday 27 October. The council’s register shows nine objections and no comments in support. Melton Parish Council has not objected, but has sent the council a two-page list of questions about drainage, roads, play space and trees.
The application, reference DC/26/0060/ARM, settles the appearance, layout, scale and landscaping of the scheme. The principle of building here was decided three years ago, when a planning inspector overturned the council’s refusal. That history is why the same arguments about St Andrews Place are back on the register in October 2026.
What is proposed
The site is land off St Andrews Place and Waterhead Lane, with the only vehicle access through the St Andrews Place estate. The applicant is Mr D Bates, with Ben Elvin Planning Consultancy of Ipswich as agent. The planning, design and access statement sets out:
- 51 homes, below the 55 allowed by the outline permission, in one, two, three and four bedroom sizes
- 18 affordable homes, the 33 per cent the former Suffolk Coastal Local Plan requires
- six self-build plots at the eastern end of the site, whose designs may change when a self-builder takes each plot on
- flats in the taller buildings in one part of the site, with terraced, semi-detached and detached houses elsewhere
- public open space, a surface water attenuation pond and a pumping station
- footpaths through the site and a cycle link to St Andrews Place
- secure cycle parking at Melton railway station, required by a condition of the outline permission
The council’s housing enabling officer wrote on 14 September that the 18 affordable homes should split as nine for affordable rent, four shared ownership and five discounted market sale, and that half of all 51 homes should be built to the accessible M4(2) standard. The same letter gives the scale of local need: 65 households on the council’s housing register have a Melton connection, and 35 of them are in the three bands that count as being in housing need. Thirty-four of the 65 need a one-bedroom home.
Sources: the application on the East Suffolk planning register and the housing enabling officer’s letter and planning statement in its documents list.
Six years, one refusal and an appeal
The outline application, DC/20/1831/OUT, for up to 55 homes was received on 19 May 2020. East Suffolk Council refused it on 2 March 2022. The inspector’s decision records that the refusal “was based solely on the perceived inadequacy of the access along St Andrew’s Place, and the impact on local traffic conditions”. No other ground was given.
The applicant, Mr C Dawson of the Warburg Dawson Partnership, appealed. Inspector Philip Major visited on 7 March 2023 and allowed the appeal on 16 March 2023, calling it “a finely balanced case”. He found that:
- St Andrews Place “would be able to cater for normal day to day traffic” from the number of homes proposed
- the two tight bends on the approach gave him “slight concern” about construction traffic, but any difficulty “would be likely to be of a slight and temporary nature”
- delays at the Station Road and Wilford Bridge Road junction, and at the Melton traffic lights, would be “relatively modest”
- the walk to the bus stops and Melton station via St Andrews Place “is easy and takes just a few minutes”
The land is part of a larger block allocated in the 2018 Melton Neighbourhood Plan, under policy MEL20, for commercial use, housing and open space. The commercial part, Riduna Park, was built first. The inspector noted that an access from the south had “become difficult”, which is why everything now comes through St Andrews Place.
A legal agreement dated 7 November 2022 ties the permission to affordable housing, a habitat mitigation payment for the Deben Estuary, a contribution to secondary school places and a pedestrian link at the railway station. Suffolk County Council’s development contributions manager reminded the council on 10 September that those obligations must bind any new permission.
What the parish council and residents say
Melton Parish Council’s letter of 28 September says the scheme “will provide much-needed smaller homes” and that the houses are “of a modern design”. It then asks the district council to resolve:
- which roads and footways will be adopted by Suffolk County Council, and which left to a private management company
- whether the attenuation pond can cope with the natural springs and groundwater on the site, and what the pumping station is for
- the effect on properties north of the railway on Brick Kiln Lane, which have no mains water and rely on private wells
- the absence of any play equipment on the plans
- extra wear on bridleways Melton 8 and 10 behind the site, which it says are “already in poor condition”
- protection of trees replanted under an earlier tree replacement order, and of the protected tree at the site entrance
The applicant’s own consultation report records a public exhibition attended by 70 people, 93 per cent of them local residents, who returned 57 feedback forms. Of the 98 concerns raised, 68 per cent were about highways: 15 people said St Andrews Place was unsuitable for construction traffic and 14 said it was unsuitable for 51 homes. Just over half, 51 per cent, said the density was wrong for the site.
The council’s register lists 13 public comments on the detailed plans, nine of them objections, submitted between 18 September and 7 October. We do not name individual objectors.
What the other consultees say
Thirty consultees were asked and 14 had replied by 11 October.
- Suffolk Constabulary (7 October) does not object. Its design out crime officer recorded 31 police incidents within about 800 metres of the site in the year to 5 October 2026, and asks for changes to the footpath links between plots 9 and 11 and plots 27 and 28, which it says create secluded escape routes.
- East Suffolk’s ecologist (2 October) says the landscape and ecological management plan is incomplete and asks for more information before conditions can be settled.
- East Suffolk’s landscape officer (1 October) says the tree survey broadly meets the condition, wants a site-specific arboricultural method statement, and notes the site is subject to a Forestry Commission restocking notice.
- Suffolk County Council’s rights of way team does not object, provided bridleways Melton 8 and 10 stay open throughout construction.
What it means for you
If you live on St Andrews Place, the inspector has already decided that construction traffic can come down your road. What the council can still shape is how: the outline permission requires highway works before any building starts, and the applicant offered new parking laybys along the street at the appeal. The construction management detail is the thing to comment on.
If you are on the housing register with a Melton connection, 18 of these homes are affordable, nine of them for rent, and the officer’s figures show one-bedroom homes are the biggest need.
If you use the bridleways behind the site or the footpath links to Melton station, the parish council has asked for developer money to repair them, and the station gets new secure cycle parking under the conditions.
The council’s target date of 27 October is an agreed extension; the original deadline was 20 July. The register does not yet say whether the decision will be taken by officers or by the planning committee. Comments go to planning@eastsuffolk.gov.uk quoting DC/26/0060/ARM.
More on local planning: East Suffolk planning news, Melton Meadows and the £750,000 CIL recovery, house prices in Woodbridge and Melton and trains from Melton and Woodbridge.
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