The future for a plan to build hundreds of new homes near Gloucester has been thrown in to doubt by a new ruling from the Planning Inspectorate that prevents proposed access roads for the development.

A decision to rule against the new access routes will mean that Sneedhams Green, an open space of land just south of Matson, will remain unchanged – a decision welcomed as a triumph by the Open Spaces Society (OSS) for both sheep graziers and the natural environment

Black Box Planning Ltd, acting on behalf of the GW Hughes Will Trust, had applied to the Planning Inspectorate for approval to build access across the common, which is directly south of Matson and close to the M5. The access would have linked the Snow Capel proposed development site, which is the subject of a planning application for 190 dwellings, to Winnycroft Lane.

OSS Case officer High Craddock said: "The society is not opposed to the Snow Capel development. But if the developers want part of the common for their plans, they should add some land to it, to replace what will be lost to the new access ways."

He addded: "That could easily have been done by means of an application for an exchange of land, and by now the developers might have the necessary consent in their back pocket. But they thought they could get away with a cheaper option, where the local community, the commoner and the common would bear all the costs. They have been turned down and rightly so."

Key objections to the changes focused on the applicant's failure to offer any new land to add to the common to replace what would be

lost to the new access ways, while the OSS added that the works would further have hindered the exercise of grazing rights on the common, by making the common boundary more porous to grazing sheep.

Mr Craddock added: "The new access ways would also have opened up three new breaches in the common perimeter. The developers had no regard for the exercise of commoners' rights—a practice which has likely gone on here for centuries. If they wish to proceed with a new application for an exchange of land, they will need to propose cattle grids or gates. Had the developers commissioned half-decent research, or listened to the objections, they could have made a new application capable of being granted, but they just chose to plough on and ignore the criticism. Now their timetable has been set back by a year or more."

Chas Townley, the society's volunteer local correspondent, said: "Sneedhams Green is the last remaining common with graziers' rights still being exercised within Gloucester City. This is a significant decision which demonstrates the importance of providing replacement land for common land lost as a result of development proposals."