At 7.15pm last night Forest Heath District Council voted unanimously to reject the Earl of Derby’s application to build more than a thousand houses at Hatchfield on the edge of Newmarket. The result of one of the most intense PR assignments my colleague Victoria Sabin and I have ever undertaken and a personal triumph for the amazing Rachel Hood and her colleagues in SHNAG (Save Historic Newmarket Action Group). This vote, enabled by a fundamental change in housing policy under the new government, will have repercussions for other Local Authorities all over the country and give great strength to countless communities faced with similar attempts to concrete over greenfield sites.
