Teignmouth Town Council has agreed to submit ‘a robust objection’ to a developer’s request to dodge its commitment to provide affordable housing on its site in the town.

At a meeting on Tuesday (January 13) town councillors agreed to write to Teignbridge District Council to ask planners to refuse an application by the developer of the Teignbrook site on Higher Exeter Road to remove the Section 106 obligations that require it to provide an element of affordable housing and make financial contributions to projects in the local area.

Last October, Harrington Homes asked Teignbridge District Council to waive its Section 106 responsibilities for the Teignbrook site because it claimed the costs would make the site financially unviable.

The Section 106 obligations include a condition for 25% of the housing on the site to be allocated as ‘affordable’ and a requirement to financially contribute to the local community through education, sport, transport and biodiversity funds.

In a motion tabled at Tuesday’s Teignmouth Town Council meeting, councillors Dan Comer, David Cox, Mike Jackman, Penny Lloyd and Vanda Rudge pointed out that the legally binding commitments, covering affordable housing, education, healthcare, highways, play areas and habitat mitigation, were ‘essential prerequisites for granting planning permission on greenfield land’. They added that the removal of these obligations would create ‘an unacceptable deficit in local infrastructure’ and would ‘fail to mitigate the permanent loss of countryside and wildlife habitats’.

In the developer’s application to remove the Section 106 obligations, Stantec UK Ltd, an engineering consultant acting on behalf of Harrington Homes, said costs had continued to rise ‘due to the unforeseen realities of delivery on site and associated technical challenges’. It pointed out that an independent financial viability assessment had concluded that the scheme in its current state would be ‘terminally unviable and undeliverable’ and would be stalled in December 2025 unless the Section 106 obligations were removed.

Councillor Joan Atkins urged councillors to consider ‘the bigger picture’ and recognise the financial challenges the developer is facing. She said that while it was ‘extremely concerning’ that the developer was trying to renege on its Section 106 agreement, she was worried about the developer’s ability to continue building houses if the requirements were waived.

She suggested an amendment to the motion requesting that the town council letter request that Teignbridge planners negotiate with the developers to get the best deal possible.

The amendment was carried and the letter from the Town Council will acknowledge the need for a speedy resolution and request ‘that Teignbridge District Council will negotiate the best resolution possible for the site to be completed, should that be some concession on affordable housing targets’.

More than 120 comments objecting to the removal of the Section 106 obligations have been lodged on the Teignbridge Planning Portal since November. Last week, the District Council posted numerous notices on lampposts near the site advising that the consultation period is open until January 30.

Earlier this month, local MP Martin Wrigley added his voice to the objectors when he branded Harrington’s attempts to wriggle out of its responsibility to provide affordable homes as ‘incompetent and purely greed’.