Campaigners are celebrating after research by the neighbourhood plan delivery group found 72% of planning appeals in the Royal Borough over the past year were dismissed. The group is taking it as a sign that the Neighbourhood Plan is working and its influence with planning officers and inspectors growing.

Diana Tombs, a member of the delivery group, said: “We believe we are beginning to see the impact our policies are having both on the planning application decisions being decided by the borough planning officers and the planning panel and also by inspectors at appeal.

“We are particularly pleased with a couple of recent appeal decisions on sites in Coronation Road and Devenish Lane which were decided in our favour, based on what we argued would be a harmful impact that the developments would have on the character of our area. Protecting the character of the area was one of the most important issues raised by the local community when we were consulting on the Plan so we are delighted that the adopted NP policies are helping to do this.” The neighbourhood plan for Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale was adopted by the Royal Borough on April 29 2014 – and the number of dismissals increased by 22% following its introduction as a key planning document.

The research conducted by the delivery group revealed that, of 27 appeals from April 2014 to present, 72% were dismissed, a 22% rise on the year April 2013 to March 2014 when half of all applications were allowed on appeal.

Patrick Griffin, chairman of the Society for the Protection of Ascot and the Environs (SPAE) said the neighbourhood plan offers the community much greater protection from over-development. He said: “I think the reason for the increase is the Neighbourhood Plan – before we were relying on the national guidance and now we have the additional protection.” “The neighbourhood plan has nine strategic sites where the local community would allow those to be developed. The gas holder station in Sunninghill is one, as is Sunningdale Park, and Heatherwood Hospital could have some houses on it.

“It’s not to say we do not want development, in the community we are prepared to accept some development but we have been plagued with over-development of sites which has really started to become too much.”