Counsel says refusing the 1,500-home scheme against the highways evidence is a high risk. Maidenhead councillors decide the deferred plan on Wednesday.

Councillors decide on Wednesday 9 September whether CALA Homes can change nine conditions on its permission for up to 1,500 homes at Maidenhead Golf Club. They deferred the same application in July and asked for three things. All three are back, and a barrister has told them that refusing would carry “a highly material risk”.

Officers recommend approval.

What is actually being decided

This is a Section 73 application, reference 26/00885/VAR. It does not re-open the principle of building on the golf course. The outline permission, 24/00091/OUT, was granted on 15 December 2025 and stands whatever happens on Wednesday.

The officer report is explicit about that. A Section 73 permission “takes effect as a new, independent permission”, sitting alongside the original, and the applicant can choose which to build out. So the existing permission is what the report calls a fall-back position of overriding weight.

What is on the table is a set of changes to conditions 3, 5, 6, 7, 17, 18, 19, 27 and 29:

  • the principal access off Harvest Hill Road changes from a roundabout to a priority junction
  • the accesses are revised to give an uninterrupted route for pedestrians and cyclists
  • a small single-storey infrastructure zone is added along the Green Spine for a planned substation
  • a Secondary Street parcel is introduced
  • the Land Use, Building Heights, Movement and Access and Parcel parameter plans are refined to match the detailed design work done since December
  • condition 29 is retimed, so the Waste and Material Management Strategy has to be agreed before work starts rather than later

The secondary Harvest Hill Road access stays where it is.

Key dates for application 26/00885/VAR: deferred by committee on 21 July 2026 for a road safety audit, a cumulative traffic assessment and a legal opinion; audit submitted 3 August; council highways team raised no objection on 7 August; new National Planning Policy Framework published 17 August; update sheet published 1 September carrying counsel advice; committee decides 9 September
Seven weeks between the deferral and the decision, and the answers all point the same way.

Why it was sent away in July

The committee heard the application on 21 July 2026 and deferred it. The update sheet quotes the minutes. Councillor Douglas proposed the deferral and Councillor Brar seconded it. Members wanted:

  • a Road Safety Audit
  • a cumulative assessment of the wider traffic impacts for the whole South West Maidenhead allocation, not just this site
  • a legal opinion on those matters

A named vote was taken.

What came back

The Road Safety Audit was submitted on 3 August. The council’s own Highways Development Control team replied on 7 August, saying it was “satisfied with the contents of the RSA and maintains the position that the proposals are acceptable in highways terms and raises no objection”.

On the cumulative assessment, officers say they could not go back for more. Their reasoning is that this application does not change the amount of development. The 1,500 homes were permitted in December. The report puts it flatly: the amendments “do not amend the quantum of development on the site and therefore the wider cumulative impacts upon the highway network”. National Highways and the local highways authority had already assessed that under the outline permission.

On the legal opinion, the advice is the sharpest thing in the papers. Counsel was asked whether the consultee comments were enough to decide on. The answer, quoted in the update sheet, is that where a decision-maker rejects expert evidence without a competing expert view, “the duty to give reasons is heightened”, and:

The central charges likely to be laid against the decision-maker in these circumstances is that the decision taken is arbitrary and/or irrational … in my initial view, the extent of such a risk in the circumstances described in my instructions is relatively high.

Counsel adds that the level of risk would depend on how any refusal reason was worded, and that “at present, this should merely be acknowledged as a highly material risk”.

Officers tell members the advice should be given “the upmost of gravity”, and that the bar to conclude differently from technical expert evidence supplied by multiple consultees “is high”.

Three sets of experts have looked at the highways case and none has objected: the applicant’s consultants, the council’s own highways team and National Highways.

A new planning rulebook landed in between

The National Planning Policy Framework was reissued on 17 August 2026, after the July deferral and before Wednesday’s meeting. Officers treat it as a material consideration of critical importance.

They have checked the borough’s own local plan policies against the new National Decision Making Policies and concluded that none is materially inconsistent, so all keep their weight. The report’s assessment of the new framework focuses on highways, and on Policy DM7, which tells decision-makers to assume that separate regulatory regimes will operate properly rather than duplicating them.

The numbers behind the recommendation

  • The site is 54.18 hectares, in Oldfield ward, about 500 metres south of Maidenhead town centre and just south of Maidenhead station.
  • The Royal Borough owns the whole of it freehold, which is why the committee has to decide rather than officers. The constitution does not allow a delegated decision on major development where the council is the landowner.
  • The council’s latest published five year housing land supply is 4.04 years. That is under five, so the tilted balance in the framework applies and the starting point is a presumption in favour of approval.
  • Five letters of objection were received across both consultation rounds.

What objectors said, and what officers said back

The five objections raise building heights, overlooking from the elevated part of the site, tree retention, congestion on Shoppenhangers Road, pressure on schools and GP surgeries, and the loss of green space.

Officers answer most of them the same way: the point was settled under the outline permission, which is extant and of overriding weight, or it is a matter for the reserved matters applications still to come.

Two answers are worth quoting for residents who plan to keep pushing.

  • On heights: “This application does not propose any detailed design proposals and this will be considered as part of the subsequent Reserved Matters applications.”
  • On congestion: “Highways have been considered as part of this application by both the Local Highways Authority and National Highways. No objections in terms of safety nor capacity have been raised.”

One objector asked for building heights next to 3 to 6 Woodlands Rise to be capped at two storeys. Officers reply that the parameter plans set an upper limit only, and the actual heights come later.

What it means for you

  • If you object to the height or layout of what gets built, Wednesday is not your moment. The reserved matters applications are, and they are still to come. That is where scale, layout, appearance and landscaping are fixed.
  • If you use Harvest Hill Road, the main change is real and physical: a priority junction rather than a roundabout at the principal access.
  • If you walk or cycle there, that is the stated reason for the swap, to give an uninterrupted route across the access.
  • The meeting is public. Maidenhead Development Management Committee, 6pm on Wednesday 9 September, Council Chamber, Town Hall, Maidenhead. The agenda notes the meeting was moved to September.

The clubhouse on the same site is a separate matter, already decided: the council approved a £70,000 demolition and turned down community groups who asked to use the buildings first.

We will report what the committee decides. More planning coverage is on our Windsor planning news page.

Sources

Checked 5 September 2026. Officer recommendations are not decisions. The committee can approve, refuse or defer again.