Finally! The fat lady quaffs cider with Rosie!

Last year  we celebrated the news that an Inspector had dismissed a developer’s appeal against a refusal to allow an estate of houses at the entrance to Laurie Lee’s Slad Valley. As we said at the time it would have been “one of the most vandalistic actions that could be committed in the whole of rural England” so everyone won (except the developers).

But it wasn’t quite the end. The builders spent lots of money on a final throw of the dice – they sought a judicial review to try to reverse the decision. But now they have abandoned it so that really is the end.

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It is “great news for Stroud” says Richard Lloyd of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. “[It] should give some hope to other threatened landscapes across the UK which have particular heritage value.” (Like Oswestry, perhaps?)

“When sound explanations and a reasoned defence are mounted against an unreasonable planning application, developers can see their plans defeated, however big their chest of fighting funds.”