One of the main objectives for Amersham-based developer Inland Homes in the current financial year is to gain planning consent for 350 homes on the former Ministry of Defence site in Beaconsfield.

The company’s annual report for the year to June 30, 2018, shows revenue at £147.4m, an increase of 62.5 per cent on £90.7m in the same period last time. Recurring profit before tax at £19.3m is 6.6 per cent above last year’s £18.1m.

The land bank stands at 6,870 plots, mainly in the south and south east. Inland specialises in building on land that has been used before.

In August this year the brownfield specialist launched a housing association subsidiary called Rosewood Housing.

Inland’s chief executive Stephen Wicks says one of biggest causes of delay in the delivery of new homes in the UK is arguments over the level of affordable housing. Wilton Park is a case in point, he claims. South Bucks District Council had refused to budge over its assertion that no more than 60 per cent of the future homes should be for private sale on the site of the former MoD School of Languages.

“Despite our 100 per cent record in securing permissions, unfortunately the UK planning system continues to present challenges to us in certain instances,” reports the chief in his annual review.

“The 100-acre site at Wilton Park, described by Savills as the best residential development opportunity in Southern England has an allocation of 350 homes and 2,100 square metres of commercial space.

“We have now owned the site for five years, guiding the project through to an adopted planning brief and a subsequent planning application which has now been submitted for over a year.

“Developers are required to build affordable housing as defined by local authority policy – in this case 40 per cent of all homes built – unless it can be demonstrated through a Financial Viability Assessment that it would not be viable to do so.”

Mr Wicks says South Bucks District Council refused to accept the findings of Inland’s FVA signed off by a source approved by the local authority. “It demonstrated the delivery of the decreed 40 per cent at Wilton Park would be unviable due to heavy infrastructure costs.

“It subsequently commissioned a further viability assessment which took six months to prepare and came to a similar conclusion which, frustratingly, the council is again refusing to accept.”

The chief executive adds: “Inland Homes is making every effort to engage with the council to resolve this matter to everyone’s satisfaction and discussions are continuing.”

He summed up: “Such delays caused by arguments over the level of affordable housing are one of the causes of delays in the delivery of new homes in the UK. The battle continues.”

Pictured are the eight-strong team from Inland who raised more than £30,000 for a children’s charity in September by climbing all three of the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales in 24 seconds less than 24 hours.. The team left to right David Zarcaro, Mark Woods, Anthony Tonkin, David Parsons, Paul Litherland, Richard Craigmile, Anthony Rouse and Jon Lovell scaled Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in exactly 23 hours, 59 minutes and 36 seconds.

The squad was led by 27-year-old surveyor Anthony Rouse. He has been raising money for the HCPT Group 179 since he was 18. The Catholic charity takes sick, disabled and disadvantaged children on holiday to Lourdes every Easter.

“The challenge was the most mentally and physically challenging thing I’ve done in my whole life,” said the team leader. “We are an active group of guys but after the second peak we weren’t sure we were going to be able to finish. When we started to climb Mount Snowdon it was three in the morning and we were in driving wind and rain and pitch darkness. The last part was a vertical climb – that was the hardest part to get through mentally but with the help of a sprint finish at the end, we did it.”

The team covered a total walking distance of 23 miles (37km) and a total ascent of 3,064 metres (10,052 square feet). Driving distance between the mountains accounted for another 462 miles.

The money raised was enough to cover travel for up to ten children to Lourdes for at least three years.