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City & Country's Stansted and Birchanger schemes go to inquiry: what happens now

In this piece (5 sections)
City & Country's illustrative masterplan for its two schemes: the planned streets, homes and green space drawn on an aerial-style map and outlined in red, on fields between Stansted Mountfitchet and Birchanger, with the M11 along the right-hand edge
City & Country's site-wide illustrative masterplan, from its planning applications Credit: Dutch Landscape Architects for City & Country (inquiry core document CD2.27)

From Tuesday 3 November, a public inquiry is examining plans by the developer City & Country for up to 480 homes on Green Belt land between Stansted Mountfitchet and Birchanger – the schemes the local press calls “Stanhanger”. Here is what the inquiry is, why it’s happening, and what comes next.

Timeline: applications submitted 6 November 2025; Uttlesford District Council’s planning committee votes to refuse them 10 June 2026; called in by the Government 1 July 2026; public inquiry opens 3 November 2026, scheduled for 8 sitting days; inspector’s report expected by 27 January 2027; decision possibly February to May 2027 (our estimate).

The schemes

City & Country applied in November 2025 for two schemes: up to 300 homes south-west of Mountfitchet High School, with a care home and space for shops and offices, and up to 180 homes off Birchanger Lane. The firm offers 50% affordable homes, along with more than 20% “biodiversity net gain” – a measured increase in the site’s value for wildlife, where the legal minimum is 10% – and new walking and cycling routes.

Half is what national policy’s “Golden Rules” ask of major housing schemes in Uttlesford’s Green Belt: 15 percentage points more affordable housing than local policy normally requires, which is 35%. In a statement signed on 28 October, the firm and the council set out how that half would be made up: 134 homes at what they call “Affordable/Social Rent”, 58 for affordable home ownership and 48 for discounted market sale, with 20 of the rented homes passed to the council as council homes.1 Those two rents aren’t the same. The draft legal terms in June’s committee report said “Affordable Rent”, which can be up to 80% of market rent, rather than social rent. The final legal agreement wasn’t among the inquiry’s published documents on 3 November.

The homes to buy aren’t spelled out yet either. In national policy, “discounted market sales housing” is sold at least 20% below local market value, to buyers chosen with regard to local incomes and house prices, and should stay discounted for later buyers too: June’s draft terms said it would be “secured in perpetuity”. “Affordable home ownership” can mean any of several things: shared ownership, where you buy part of the home and pay rent on the rest; an equity loan; another home sold at least 20% below market value; or rent to buy. The statement doesn’t say which of these the homes would be, or how big the discounts would be: that’s for the final legal agreement. As a guide, 20% off Uttlesford’s average house price of £468,000 in August still leaves about £374,000, more than the £336,000 first-time buyers paid on average here.2

Bar chart of the 240 affordable homes listed by City & Country and the council on 28 October: 134 at “Affordable/Social Rent”, 58 affordable home ownership and 48 discounted market sale.

Why it’s at an inquiry

Planning officers at Uttlesford District Council (UDC) recommended approval. But on 10 June 2026 the council’s planning committee voted to refuse both schemes, on two grounds: the sites aren’t allocated for housing in the Local Plan – the council’s plan for development in the district up to 2041 – and building on them would harm the Green Belt. City & Country’s chairman, Tim Sargeant, said the decision represented “a fundamental misapplication of national planning policy”.

Under rules the Government made in March 2026, a council that proposes to refuse 150 or more homes must consult the Government before it decides. UDC did so, and on 1 July the housing minister called both schemes in, taking the decision away from the council. It now rests with the Housing Secretary.

What the inquiry is, and what it will look at

A public inquiry is a formal hearing run by a planning inspector. The inspector hears evidence from the council, the developer and others, then writes a report and recommendation for the Housing Secretary, who makes the final decision.

The Government has asked the inspector to report on four matters: whether the schemes fit national policy on delivering enough homes; whether they fit national policy on protecting Green Belt land; whether they fit Uttlesford’s Local Plan; and anything else the inspector thinks relevant.

Stansted Mountfitchet and Birchanger parish councils objected to both schemes and, by January, had appointed legal experts. With the Birchanger Residents’ Association and the Birchanger and Stansted Green Belt Preservation Group, they are now a formal party at the inquiry.

Two things have changed since the committee’s vote.

First, UDC now reports a 5.35-year supply of land for housing, which it says is its first full five-year supply “in many years”. In June, its latest confirmed figure was 4.77 years. For the inquiry, the council puts it at 5.67 years, and City & Country at 4.48. That matters because of how national policy treats “grey belt” – Green Belt land that does not “strongly contribute” to checking sprawl, keeping towns apart or protecting historic towns. New homes on grey belt land are not treated as harmful to the Green Belt if they pass four tests, and one is an evidenced unmet need for them. For housing, that means the council can’t show a five-year supply of land for new homes, or has built far too few homes.

Second, national planning policy was rewritten in August. It keeps those tests, and adds a separate route for homes within about 800 metres’ walk of a well-connected station. Homes in the Green Belt that fit none of the policy’s exceptions need “very special circumstances” to be approved.

Both changes count, because the inspector takes account of new policy and other relevant changes since the council’s decision. The council and the firm agree that the Birchanger site is grey belt. They disagree on whether the Stansted site is, and on whether the council has a five-year supply.3

Dates, and how to follow it

The inquiry began at 10am on Tuesday 3 November and is scheduled to sit for eight days (the Planning Inspectorate hasn’t published which days), at Canfield Business Park, High Cross Lane, Little Canfield. Inquiries are open to the public, so anyone can go and listen, and anyone may report on or record the proceedings as long as they don’t disrupt them.

The deadline for written comments was 26 August. Whether members of the public can speak is up to the inspector. If you’d like to, ask the Planning Inspectorate (which runs the inquiry) as soon as you can, at [email protected], quoting its case references APP/C1570/V/26/3378829 and APP/C1570/V/26/3378830. Its case page shows the dates and documents.

The inspector’s report is expected by 27 January 2027, and the date for the decision is to be published when the report goes in. The decision itself will be published on GOV.UK.

Sources

Uttlesford District Council

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Office for National Statistics

Planning Inspectorate

City & Country

  • Stansted & Birchanger — the developer’s project page, undated (viewed October 2026).
  • Stansted Call-in Inquiry Core Documents — shared folder linked from that page, including the statements of common ground between the firm and the council on planning (CD6.1), housing land supply (CD6.3) and affordable housing (CD6.5, 28 October 2026), the parties’ evidence on housing supply (CD4.14, CD5.5) and the Rule 6 parties’ statement of case (CD7.1), viewed 2 November 2026.

Daily Gazette

Bishop’s Stortford Independent

Footnotes

  1. Our sums from the statement’s tables: at “Affordable/Social Rent”, 84 homes on the Stansted site and 50 at Birchanger; affordable home ownership, 36 and 22; discounted market sale, 30 and 18. That’s 240 homes in all. It’s proposed that 10 rented homes on each site go to the council. ↩

  2. Our arithmetic: 80% of £468,000 is £374,400. ONS’s August figures are provisional. A discount is set against the market value of the particular home, which may be well below the district’s average, for example for a flat. ↩

  3. The 5.35-year figure is the council’s published assessment, from its latest five-year housing land supply statement, which it published after the new national policy and Housing Delivery Test results came out over the summer. The planning portfolio holder reported it to Full Council on 20 October. For the inquiry, the council counts 4,278 homes against a five-year requirement of 3,770, and City & Country counts 3,376. On the Stansted site, officers thought it could be grey belt, while the council’s own Green Belt study, as the committee report summarises it, found that it makes a strong contribution to the Green Belt and “should not be regarded as Grey Belt land”. The dispute now is whether it strongly contributes to checking the sprawl of large built-up areas. ↩

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