DEVELOPER Bloor Homes South West has made an appeal to the government over its plans to build up to 450 new homes on land near Coalpit Heath.
The housebuilder first submitted formal plans to develop the greenfield site to the east of the village, between Roundways and St Anne’s Drive, the railway line and Woodside Road, last October.
A total of 450 people have written to object to the plans, with just three writing in support.
South Gloucestershire Council has not included the site as a potential area for housing in its draft Local Plan, which is currently being reviewed by the government, and it has been opposed by local councillors and MP Claire Young.
However Bloor Homes has now asked the government to step in and decide on the future of the plans, after the council failed to make a decision within the legal time limit of 13 weeks, which current government guidance has extended to 26 weeks.
It will take the final decision out of the council’s hands, although a planning committee is due to discuss the scheme at a meeting on September 17, and decide what its decision would have been had it been made in time.
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News of the appeal was revealed by Frampton Cotterell ward councillor Jon Lean, who said residents will be allowed to speak at a meeting on the site on September 11 at 10.10am.
He said: “Ward councillors continue to oppose this development for a variety of reasons including its inappropriateness in the Green Belt and how a development of such a size is unsustainable here.”
*Plans to build between two and four houses north of Frampton Cotterell on a small field behind Frampton End Road have been approved on appeal.
South Gloucestershire Council refused ‘permission in principle’ to develop the site in April but this was overturned by an inspector in August.