A question mark hangs over a blueprint for where thousands of homes will be built in Acle, Wroxham and Broadland after a planning inspector raised a string of concerns.

A question mark hangs over a blueprint for where thousands of homes will be built in Acle, Wroxham and Broadland after a planning inspector raised a string of concerns.

A planning inspector needs to agree that the Joint Core Strategy, drawn up by a group of councils in response to government calls for at least 36,000 new homes in and around Norwich by 2026, is sound before it can be used as a basis for deciding planning applications.

If the inspector decides the strategy is not sound, it raises the troubling prospect of councils, without a blueprint for where growth should happen, finding it hard to turn down applications from developers for homes in other areas.

But at a meeting held in Norwich last week, planning inspector Roy Foster raised a string of “prelimin-ary soundness concerns” around key evidence elements of the strategy.

The concerns included the lack of a plan B if the Northern Distributor Road is not built; no targets for getting people to use public transport; and a lack of clarity on how important it will be to have infrastructure such as roads and schools in place before homes are built.

The strategy says up to 200 homes should be build in Acle, the same in Wroxham and 2000 elsewhere in Broadland.