Planners drop the bombshell
Planners at Bath and North East Somerset Council dropped the bombshell last week as they launched their new Core Strategy which will shape how the district will look in the next 20 years.
The plans outline more than 15,000 new homes that will be built in Bath and North East Somerset before 2026. Of those, planning chiefs will recommend that 6,000 are built within Bath itself, half of which are already earmarked at the huge Western Riverside site, on brownfield land. They also want about 1,500 homes built on green belt land to the south and west of the city, around the picturesque village of Englishcombe, close to Bath Spa University.
But it is on the edge of Bristol that the bulk of the development will come. Planners want another 6,000 homes, effectively a new town, built between Whitchurch and Stockwood on the edge of Bristol and Keynsham, partly on green belt land. Another 2,000 homes will be dotted around the rest of the district, with Midsomer Norton and Radstock a favoured location.
But a spokesman from Campaign to Protect Rural England attacked the decision.
“We are strongly opposed to the proposals for future housing development in the environs of Bath. We believe that neither of these plans is tenable in view of the need to protect the environs of Bath as an integral part of the city’s World Heritage status.
“This means more than 10,000 acres of Avon countryside disappearing under houses. There will be even more land taken for schools, shopping malls, roads, industrial estates and other infrastructure. If this is allowed to go ahead, large areas of our countryside will be lost for ever. Such developments will add more traffic to the already congested local roads and sow seeds for social and other future problems.”
Read more about the announcement at the Western Daily Press online »