A BID to squeeze an additional 27 homes onto the site of the former Ford factory site in South Ockendon is earmarked for approval by planning councillors when they meet next week.

Over recent years much of the Ford site, which closed in 2004, has already been built on by St Modwen Homes and Bellway, following approval in April 2011 by Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation of an outline application for 650 homes on the whole site.

The planning power of the corporation, which was shut down by the government a year later having failed to achieve many of its goals, reverted to Thurrock Council which has subsequently – in separate applications – granted full planning permission to the two developers.

The outline planning permission for the wider site area has now expired as all reserved matters needed to have been submitted by 26 April 2018.

Now, following pre-application discussions by St Modwen Homes with the council's major applications manager, Chris Purvis, a new application has been put to the council which would result in an increase in dwelling numbers beyond the 650 dwellings originally permitted.

The new full planning application seeks permission for the erection of 92 units, comprising 86 one and two bed apartments, two three bed dwellings and four two bed dwellings along with associated infrastructure, works and landscaping. Changes to the original plan would result in six houses instead of four within the central part of the development and a change from 31 houses to 86 apartments in the form of three blocks of apartments in the central and eastern side.

St Modwen Homes say the main driver for the change is meeting the higher sales demand encountered for apartment living in this location. The changes would result in a net increase of 57 dwellings on the earmarked site and in total would increase the development to 677 dwellings on the whole former Ford factory site.

The developers say that adding the extra homes will help Thurrock Council meet its government new homes targets, which it is significantly behind.

As it stands the authority has sanctioned just more than half of the new homes it had been targeted to provide in recent years to meet growing demand.

That's a slump from a recorded 88 per cent it had met by the end of 2018 and the council is now short of its long term targets. Between 2015 and 2020 the borough should have seen 4,153 new dwellings built but it is well short - and the government target of creating 32,000 new homes in the borough by the middle of the next decade looks a long way away.

Earlier this year Thurrock Nub News reported on a damning indictment of the council's housing failures.

Things are not helped by the lack of a local plan - over which the council has dithered for several years and it appears to remain at least two years away.

The borough's available land supply is limited under current guidelines as 74 per cent of Thurrock is located within the Metropolitan Green Belt.

That has enabled St Modwen to press the council to increase the numbers. It adds that allowing a further 59 dwellings which were not originally envisaged will assist the council with meeting its housing numbers and relieve pressure elsewhere in Thurrock on the need to release green belt land for housing development.

And playing a large part in the numbers game to be debated by the council is the contribution that St Modwen will make to the local community.

Councillors have been told in a report that it will cost £9,541,019 to build the new homes on the site and that with current market values of new homes the profit the company makes will be 17.54 per cent - falling below the 20 per cent figure that is regarded as the minimum acceptable.

Therefore they will be asking the council to accept lesser numbers as part of its Section 106 agreement to provide funds for the local community. Figures of £198,099 for education and a further £58,000 for the NHS are included in the applicant's development viability appraisal.

Perhaps more significantly they are suggesting the scheme cannot really afford an affordable housing quota, through the agenda report before council does suggest they would concede six per cent of affordable homes on the site. This falls significantly below the council's target of 35 per cent of affordable homes on new developments but councillors will be told the authority's policy does allow an exception where financial viability, ie developer's profit, is in question.

Planning officers are recommending approval of the new application when the committee meets on Thursday, 7 January. The full application before councillors can be found here.