The Secretary of State will decide the 800-home Albrighton green belt appeal herself, not the inspector. The inquiry sits this week; comments close 9 October.

The Secretary of State has taken the decision on 800 homes at Albrighton out of the inspector’s hands. She will now decide it herself.

The Planning Inspectorate served the recovery direction on Shropshire Council on 16 September 2026, the day after the public inquiry opened in Shrewsbury. The council published the news on 17 September. We have read the letter itself, which the council hosts on its consultation portal.

It is two pages long and gives one paragraph of reasons:

The reasons for this direction are that the appeal involves proposals which raise important or novel issues of development control and/or legal difficulties, and proposals for significant development in the Green Belt.

The direction is made under section 79 and paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It is dated 16 September, signed by Helen Skinner, and carries the note that it “was made by officials on behalf of the Secretary of State, and signed on her behalf”. The recovery letter is here.

The practical effect: the inquiry runs exactly as before, the inspector hears and tests all the evidence, but the inspector writes a report and a recommendation rather than a decision. The Secretary of State then decides.

Which Albrighton, and what is proposed

This is the WV7 Albrighton, the village beside the A41 near Shifnal, not the Albrighton on the A528 just north of Shrewsbury. The two are often confused. The site is:

  • about 20 miles east of Shrewsbury
  • about 4.6 miles from Shifnal
  • about 7 miles from Wolverhampton
  • about a mile from Albrighton railway station

Boningale Developments Ltd applied in 2024 for outline permission, including access, for a mixed-use development on 48 hectares of farmland off Patshull Road. The scheme is:

  • up to 800 dwellings
  • a care home of up to 80 units
  • a secondary school
  • a local centre
  • associated access, infrastructure, landscaping and drainage

Shropshire Council refused it on 16 December 2025. Boningale appealed. The council’s reference is 24/02108/OUT; the Planning Inspectorate’s is 6007402.

Why the council refused it

The refusal went through the Southern Planning Committee, and members backed the officer’s recommendation. Two reasons were given, and both are on the council’s own record of the meeting.

The first is policy. The site sits wholly in Green Belt countryside outside any settlement development boundary. It is not safeguarded or allocated land. The council concluded it is not “grey belt”, the category the revised planning framework created for lower quality Green Belt land, and that is the pivot the whole case turns on.

The second reason is the Green Belt itself. The committee report puts it plainly:

The Local Planning Authority has accorded substantial weight to the high level of harm which would result from the loss of this 48 hectare section of the West Midlands Metropolitan Green Belt through the proposed development.

Officers found the land makes “a strong contribution to checking the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas and to assisting in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment”. They also found less than substantial harm to the Boningale Conservation Area and to Grade II listed Lea Hall and Barn.

The Green Belt point has a scale most people never see. The officer’s report records that the West Midlands Metropolitan Green Belt covers about 8 per cent of the total area of Shropshire. This one site is 48 hectares of it.

1,157 representations, and 28 of them in support

The same report gives the figure the press releases leave out. Shropshire Council received 1,157 public representations on the application. Twenty-eight were in support, and those came from a wider area between Shifnal and Bridgnorth rather than from the village.

Albrighton Village Action Group and Albrighton Development Action Group merged into a single body, ADAG, to fight it. ADAG is the Rule 6 party at the inquiry, meaning it has the same right as the council and the developer to call witnesses and cross-examine.

One of ADAG’s arguments goes to the heart of what the developer offers. The scheme’s case rests partly on community benefits amounting to “very special circumstances” strong enough to override Green Belt harm. The group’s submission says there is no requirement for a secondary school at Albrighton, and that one would undermine existing schools including Idsall in Shifnal.

Officers largely agreed. Their assessment records that the secondary school, the local centre and the care home are there to mitigate the development’s own impacts rather than to meet a need the council has identified for Albrighton. The scheme offers 35 per cent affordable housing, which officers acknowledged as a significant benefit, but not one unique to this site.

The inquiry: what is left, and when

The inquiry opened at 10am on 15 September in the Council Chamber at the Guildhall, Shrewsbury. It sits again this week.

Albrighton 800-home appeal inquiry programme, September and October 2026 Inquiry sitting days. Week one: 15 September openings and interested party representations; 16 September transport evidence; 17 September landscape and ecology; 18 September planning policy. Week two: 22 September roundtables on education and housing land supply; 23 September green belt evidence; 24 September planning evidence; 25 September planning obligations or the site visit. Week three, online only: 6 October planning obligations and conditions; 7 October closing submissions. Days from 22 September onwards are still to come. Six sitting days left, and the last two are online only The inquiry programme the council published, as at 21 September 2026. Green belt evidence is heard on 23 September. Still to come Already heard Week one, Guildhall, Shrewsbury Openings, then interested party representations, in person and online Tue 15 Sep Transport evidence, all three parties Wed 16 Sep Landscape evidence, then ecology Thu 17 Sep Planning policy, council witness Fri 18 Sep Week two, Guildhall, Shrewsbury Roundtables: education, then housing land supply Tue 22 Sep Green belt evidence, council then appellant, then ADAG on planning Wed 23 Sep Planning evidence, council then appellant Thu 24 Sep Planning obligations, or the accompanied site visit Fri 25 Sep Week three, online only Planning obligations if not already done, then conditions Tue 6 Oct Closing submissions: ADAG, council, appellant Wed 7 Oct Source: Shropshire Council inquiry programme, version 2, appeal 6007402. Graphic by Shropshire Today.
The inquiry programme as the council published it. The consultation page lists 8 and 9 October as sitting days; the programme does not use them.

Two details in that programme are worth knowing if you intend to follow it.

The first is that the council’s consultation page lists twelve sitting days, ending on 9 October. The published programme uses ten, finishing on 7 October, and marks both October days online only. The programme is headed “subject to change during course of Inquiry”, so 8 and 9 October look like reserve days rather than scheduled ones.

The second is that the programme fixes the education session. Its notes say: “No changes to be made to when roundtable sessions on education and housing land supply take place.” That is the education argument, the one ADAG says is central to the developer’s very special circumstances case, and it is heard on Tuesday 22 September.

Heritage evidence and flooding and drainage evidence will be “taken as read” unless interested parties have questions for the appellant’s witnesses.

What it means for you

If you live in Albrighton, Boningale, Donington or Cosford, this changes who decides and very little else about how the inquiry runs. The evidence is still heard and tested in front of the same inspector, in public, on the same days. What changes is that the final decision now sits with a minister rather than with the inspector who heard it, and it will be published on GOV.UK alongside the inspector’s report.

You can still have your say. The council’s consultation on the inquiry is open until 9 October 2026. The contact for appeals administration at the council is Elizabeth Griffiths, appeals@shropshire.gov.uk. The Planning Inspectorate’s case officer is Aimee Peckham, on 0303 444 5151.

Anyone who wants to read a pre-prepared statement to the inquiry is asked to send a copy to the case officer beforehand. Interested parties can also question witnesses, provided they tell the inspector in advance which witnesses and which topics.

The council publishes the whole core documents library for the inquiry, split into eighteen sections from policy and highways to ecology and education. Start at the consultation page, which links all of them.

For what else is going through the system locally, see our Shropshire planning news page. Woodhouse Lane, on the other side of the same village, is being resurfaced from 5 to 9 October, which is in our roadworks and travel page.

What happens next

There is no date for a decision. The inspector will close the inquiry, prepare a report and a recommendation, and send it to the Secretary of State, who will issue the decision “in due course”. Recovered appeals are published on GOV.UK when they are decided.