A plan for a large new housing development on the edge of a Herefordshire town has been resubmitted a year after a previous attempt was refused.
Muller Homes has resumed its efforts to build 118 homes on 10 acres of land south of Barons Cross Road on the western edge of Leominster.
A previous outline plan drew over 200 formal objections from locals, and was strongly opposed by the town council.
Refusing the bid last April, Herefordshire Council planners said it would represent “piecemeal” development of an area earmarked for strategic development, and also cited concerns over road safety, air and river pollution, flooding and the likely share of affordable homes.
The resubmitted application now “seeks to address the reasons for refusal” with newly commissioned reports covering air and river quality, and on the “residential amenity” of Westcroft, currently a cul-de-sac, through which new access to the estate would be created by demolishing a bungalow at the end of the street.
With only minor changes to its proposed layout (see picture),the new estate would be made up of a mix of one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom homes, 30 of which, or just over one in four, would be classed as affordable.
An accompanying masterplan shows how the scheme would fit into the wider proposed “sustainable urban extension” (SUE) to the southwest of the town, to be made up of 1,500 new homes bounded by a new relief road taking the A44 from the Barons cross Inn junction to the Worcester Road roundabout.
The new estate “would provide a key part in how the SUE would link into the existing urban area of Leominster” via pedestrian and cycle links, the new application says.
Delivery of the county’s strategic housing sites, including Leominster’s SUE, is well behind schedule, while a “significant shortcoming” in the delivery of new homes in the town “is both deep rooted and worsening”, it adds.
Comments on the application, numbered 230541, can be made until April 22.
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