SOUTH SOMERSET NEWS: Plans submitted for Shudrick Valley housing development

SOUTH SOMERSET NEWS: Plans submitted for Shudrick Valley housing development

CONTROVERSIAL plans to build more than 300 homes on land in Ilminster have been submitted to South Somerset District Council.

The council has received a planning application from C. G. Fry & Son and Dillington Estate to demolish existing farm buildings, build up to 330 houses and create a vehicle access from Shudrick Lane and Townsend/Long Orchard Hill.

The earmarked site is that of Shudrick Valley – an area of countryside much-loved by Ilminster people, and has already been the subject of one high-profile campaign from anti-development protestors.SOUTH SOMERSET NEWS: Plans submitted for Shudrick Valley housing development

Residents have fought hard to have the council re-think its own Local Plan proposals which are to provide the foundations for future building developments in the years to come up to 2028.

The council wants the preferred “direction of growth” for Ilminster to be in the Canal Way area of the town – rather than at Shudrick Valley.

Around 300 homes had been earmarked for Shudrick Valley as part of the council’s Local Plan, but was highlighted as an area of concern by a planning inspector during an examination of the proposals in 2013.

The council then backtracked and went back to its original idea of Canal Way for development which was changed at the last minute and replaced by Shudrick Valley.

But with the Local Plan yet to be finalised and still “up in the air” developers have taken the opportunity to submit an outline application to the council for Shudrick Valley.

The planned development put forward by C. G. Fry & Son and Dillington Estate would include “extensive areas of high quality attractive public open space.”

The private housing would be a mixture of two, three and four-bedroom homes, while there would also be “affordable housing.”

The planning application comes with a 52-page design and access statement from the developers produced by Ben Pentreath & Associates, who specialise in traditional architectural design and master-planning.

News of the application will, however, rally the Save Shudrick Valley group into action once more.

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