ILMINSTER NEWS: Planning chiefs recommend Persimmon plans should be given the green light

PLANNING chiefs at South Somerset District Council have recommended that proposals to build up to 400 homes on land off Canal Way in Ilminster should be given the go-ahead.

Members of the council’s Area West committee will meet later this month where they are being recommended to grant Persimmon Homes outline planning permission for the development. If given the go-ahead the developers would then need to provide further and more detailed information as part of a full application to get the final green light.

Planning officer, Andrew Gunn, said: “It is considered that the proposed scheme would provide a sustainable development with good access to a range of services and facilities.

“It will make an important contribution towards meeting the district’s housing needs, including 35 per cent affordable housing, it would provide a safe means of vehicular and pedestrian access, would not adversely harm residential amenity, ecology or the local landscape and would satisfactorily mitigate for surface and foul water drainage.”

But the recommendation comes in the face of stiff opposition from Ilminster Town Council and the adjoining Donyatt Parish Council.

Persimmon Homes have asked for outline permission to build up to 400 homes with associated vehicle and pedestrian access on land at Canal Way.

A 24-page report which will go before district councillors says that access to the new development will be from the access serving the existing medical centre, while a separate access for emergency vehicles only will be provided further along at Adams Meadows.

A field has been earmarked for a replacement for the Greenfylde First School although this planning application does not include the building of a new school as that would be a separate project.

PHOTO - TOP: The area of land earmarked for development is outlined/shaded off Canal Way in Ilminster.

Highways England and the Highways Authority at Somerset County Council have supported the amended application, having previously opposed the scheme, with the developers having made satisfactory changes.

The district council has received 26 letters or emails from people objecting to the scheme with various concerns including traffic, lack of employment, amenities and poor access.

But councillors will be told that the earmarked land has been included in the authority’s Local Plan for “direction of growth” and is so in in principle the preferred area for future housing needs.

Mr Gunn said: “On this basis there is no objection to the principle of housing on the site.

“Members will recall that this site along with another option at Shudrick Valley was subject to a Local Plan Examination with the outcome of which was that the Local Plan Inspector clearly found the Canal Way site to be the preferred option.”

The council’s Area West committee meeting on Wednesday, August 16, 2017, will be held at the Guildhall in Fore Street, Chard, at 5.30pm although the planning applications will not be discussed until 6.15pm at the earliest.

Members of Ilminster Town Council’s planning, highways and transport committee met earlier this week where councillors again recommended that the plans should be rejected, although they admitted that there would be housing in that area eventually, but hope it will be made on a much smaller scale.

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