Maids Moreton 96 homes plan: comments close 9 September

An outline bid for up to 96 homes north of Towcester Road is open for comment until 9 September. Council officers had already warned off a 152-home version in January.

An outline planning application for up to 96 homes on the northern edge of Maids Moreton has been registered by Buckinghamshire Council. The site is 9.2 hectares of pasture north of Towcester Road and east of Buckingham Road. Comments are invited until Wednesday 9 September 2026. (Buckinghamshire Council planning register, PL/26/06500/OA)

The application was validated on 12 August and advertised in the press today. The council’s own target date for a decision is 11 November 2026.

Officers had already turned down a bigger version

This is the part of the file most residents will not have seen. The developer asked the council for a pre-application view in October 2025, on a scheme of 152 dwellings. The written response came back on 8 January 2026, and the applicant’s own planning statement summarises what it said:

the site is not allocated in the Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan and does not accord with the spatial strategy in Policies S2 and S3
the proposal is “in significant conflict” with both that plan and the Maids Moreton Neighbourhood Plan
the council cannot show a five-year housing land supply, “but the benefits of the proposal would not outweigh the harm”
the scheme would have “significant adverse impacts” on the landscape character area, and significant impacts on the wider landscape from roads approaching from the north and north-west
the layout caused “harm from an urban design perspective”

The scheme now submitted is 96 homes rather than 152. The applicant says it answers those points in three ways:

a large open buffer would be kept in the north-western part of the site
the existing footpath would stay where it is, rather than being re-routed
the higher-density housing would sit in the south-east corner nearest the built-up village

(Planning statement, J & J Planning and Design, March 2026)

What is actually being applied for

Only access is being decided at this stage. Layout, scale, appearance and landscaping would all come back later as reserved matters.

up to 96 homes, use class C3
9.2 hectares of pastoral land enclosed by hedgerows, with one existing agricultural building
access from Furl Close, about 50 metres east of the Towcester Road and Furl Close junction
25% affordable housing, which is what Local Plan Policy H1 requires of any scheme of 11 homes or more
housing mix and tenure to be settled at reserved matters stage
the site sits in Flood Zone 1, the lowest flood risk band

The transport case is carried over from an earlier version of the scheme. The applicant states plainly that the transport assessment “was produced in respect of an earlier 140 unit scheme” and that its findings also apply to this smaller proposal.

The argument the applicant is leaning on

The whole case rests on housing land supply. Where a council cannot show five years of deliverable housing sites, paragraph 11 of the National Planning Policy Framework tilts the balance in favour of granting permission unless the harm clearly outweighs the benefit.

Buckinghamshire Council published updated positions for its four planning areas in March 2026, and it cannot demonstrate five years in any of them.

Bar chart of Buckinghamshire Council's five-year housing land supply at March 2026 by planning area: North and Central 3.73 years, West 1.98 years, South 0.97 years, East 0.86 years, all below the five-year requirement. — Graphic by The Aylesbury Times.

Maids Moreton is in the North and Central planning area, the strongest of the four at 3.73 years. That figure comes from a requirement of 7,855 homes for 2025 to 2030, an annual target of 1,571, and a deliverable supply the council puts at 5,867 homes. (North and Central area five-year housing land supply position statement, March 2026)

The other three areas are worse. The East area stands at 0.86 years, the South at 0.97 and the West at 1.98. (East, South and West position statements)

The applicant also cites a decision closer to home. An outline scheme for up to 220 homes south of Bourton Road, Bourton, was allowed on appeal on 31 March 2026. The planning statement quotes the inspector finding that even on the council’s own figure of 3.9 years there was “a substantial shortfall which renders the policies of the Local Plan and NP out of date”.

What the neighbourhood plan says

Maids Moreton has a neighbourhood plan, and it is unusually specific about this. It was approved at a referendum on 23 December 2023 and made part of the development plan in February 2024.

Policy MMG1 supports new housing on brownfield sites and small infill plots inside the settlement boundary only. The plan’s own interpretation note defines infill as “a relatively limited space or gap between existing buildings, normally for one or two dwellings”. It adds that the policy “should not be interpreted to support the development of larger sites”. The plan states that growth “will continue to be accommodated within the long-established settlement boundary”. (Maids Moreton Neighbourhood Plan v11.1, September 2023)

The application site is outside that boundary. The applicant does not dispute this, arguing instead that the boundary carries less weight because the housing shortfall has worsened and because the edge of the village has already moved.

What has already been built next door

Two schemes have changed the eastern side of the village in the past few years, and both are cited in support of this one:

Scotts Farm, now Furl Close. Outline permission for 12 homes, since built out.
Land off Walnut Drive and Foscote Road. Outline permission for 170 homes, with reserved matters for 153 homes approved after an unsuccessful Court of Appeal challenge.

For scale, the neighbourhood plan records a village with no shop, no post office and no medical practice, and an infant school planning to become a full primary. Its built-up area covers just under 6% of the civil parish. The applicant’s own account differs slightly, describing a pre-school, a primary school, a village hall and a public house, with Buckingham town centre about 2km away.

The landscape question has not gone away

The applicant commissioned a landscape and visual impact assessment. It concludes the effect on landscape character would be moderate adverse at the site and its immediate setting, falling to minor or slight further out. The greatest effect would be on people using the footpath that crosses the site.

That is the applicant’s own consultant. Officers took a harder line at pre-application stage, and the council has not yet published a case officer view on the revised scheme.

What it means for you

Comments close on Wednesday 9 September 2026. That is the date the register gives for the expiry of the press advertisement. Comments received after it can normally still be taken into account until the decision is issued, but the safe course is to comment before that date.
Comment through the “Comments” tab on the application page. Planning comments are published in full, including your name and address.
Only planning matters count. Landscape impact, highway safety, access, drainage and conflict with the local and neighbourhood plans are all relevant. Loss of a private view and the effect on your house price are not.
The register lists the expected decision level as a delegated decision, meaning officers rather than a committee. That field can change as an application progresses, and a scheme of this size attracting significant objection is the sort that is commonly called in.
The council’s target date for a decision is 11 November 2026.
Maids Moreton Parish Council had posted nothing on the application on its website when we checked on 19 August. Its meeting calendar and agendas are at maidsmoreton-pc.gov.uk.

We will report the parish council’s response and the officer recommendation when they are published. You can follow other schemes across the vale on our Aylesbury planning news page, and see what the market is doing on our Aylesbury house prices page.