Developer blames ‘misunderstanding’ as inspector orders footpath be ripped up

A developer has been ordered to rip up part of an ‘aesthetically beautiful’ footpath in Windsor, after it put asphalt over a grass verge without permission.  

The Government Planning Inspectorate found Hallmanor Ltd had broken planning rules and should return the pathway, between Alma Road and Vansittart Road, to its previous condition.  

The public footpath previously had two strips of grass either side of it, before the developer began its work sometime between 2022 and 2023, according to appeal documents. 

Hallmanor was issued an enforcement notice over the path in late 2023. 

RBWM said the new path was ‘detrimental to highway and pedestrian safety’ and could damage the roots of trees within the protected Trinity Place/Clarence Crescent Conservation Area.

The conservation area features carefully planned rows of mid-19th-century homes, and 58 listed buildings which include three churches.

It ‘has a verdant feel which is due to mature trees along pavements, thriving garden planting and the private pleasure garden associated with Clarence Crescent’, a 2015 area plan said.

The developer said it purchased the land in 2018 – and had paid RBWM £60,500 in 2020 for a release to historic restrictive covenants that govern how it can be used.

In the following years, Hallmanor opted to put asphalt over one of the two green verges that lined a central public footpath.

After the council issued its enforcement notice over the rule-breaking, the developer then issued an application for permission to divert the central footpath in December 2024.

In planning documents, the developer argued that the footpath problem stemmed from a ‘misunderstanding’ of the deeds to the land when it was first purchased.

It said: “No mention of a planning application was raised within these documents by any parties involved and the owner constructed the path in accordance with the legal agreement.

“This was a clear misunderstanding that planning permission was required.”

A string of objections were submitted to the retrospective bid, including one from the Windsor and Eton Society.

The organisation's website said it was created to ‘preserve, protect, promote and improve features of historic or public interest in the towns of Windsor and Eton’.

The society’s objection said: “The protected view towards the Garrison Church noted in the Windsor Neighbourhood Plan is affected by this proposed change of position of the path.

“It loses its central symmetry in the view and its aesthetic beauty which many residents appreciate on their walk into the town through this designated green space.”

RBWM refused the retrospective bid, but Hallmanor sought to appeal this decision to the Government Planning Inspectorate.  

In a decision notice this month, planning inspector A Berry sided with the local authority.

The inspector said: “The steps require the removal of the breach of planning control, the removal of all materials from the land, and to fill any voids and restore the land to its condition before the breach took place.

“The purpose of the EN [enforcement notice] is clearly to remedy the breach of planning control and no lesser steps would achieve that purpose.”