A PLANNING blueprint that would see thousands of new homes built on Green Belt sites near Emersons Green should be rejected, town and parish councillors say.
South Gloucestershire Council’s draft Local Plan has been drawn up to set out where developers should be allowed to build more than 22,000 new homes over the next 15 years.
It includes proposals to allow almost 2,000 new homes to be built between Siston Hill and Shortwood, 2,050 homes next to the M4 north of Lyde Green and more than 280 around Mangotsfield and Pomphrey Hill.
Three town and parish councils whose boundaries include those sites have made formal objections to the plan, claiming that it is not “sound and deliverable”.
A final public consultation on the Local Plan closed in April.
Comments collected will be submitted with it to the government, for scrutiny by a planning inspector at a public examination early next year.
Emersons Green Town Council has said its members do not believe the plan is “sound and deliverable” – the two criteria the inspector has to decide on.
The town council said: “The strategy is far too reliant on a small number of large-scale developments to meet the identified housing needs.
It said the experience of delays building Lyde Green’s schools and the lack of new medical services for the area showed that relying on developers to provide or contribute to the infrastructure and services needed was “problematic” – more time and money was needed to ensure infrastructure was put in place, “if it happens at all”.
The town council has objected to several individual sites inside its boundaries, including at Pomphrey Hill next to the Avon Ring Road, at Cossham Street in Mangotsfield, where developer Taylor Wimpey wants to build 150 homes and the neighbouring site at the Hayfields, where Cleve Rugby Club has proposed that 65 homes could be built on part of its site.
It has also objected to proposals for 2,050 homes on the opposite side of the M4 to Lyde Green, on a site named North Lyde Ecotech Village, which is split between neighbouring parishes of Pucklechurch and Westerleigh & Coalpit Heath.
It says the site’s status as ‘significant’ Green Belt land has been “conveniently downgraded”, so that development “would not be deemed urban sprawl”.
The town council has also objected to the Carsons Green and Rockhouse Farm New Neighbourhood development site between Siston Hill and Shortwood, which is split between neighbouring Pucklechurch and Siston parishes.
Both of those parish councils have also made lengthy objections to South Gloucestershire Council’s blueprint.
Pucklechurch Parish Council said: “SGC might claim to want what local people want but consultation feedback shows how little they have listened to these people.
“Much of the housing at these new neighbourhoods will be beyond the financial reach of residents on average wages or who currently live in poor housing or unstable tenancies, the very people with housing needs that this plan is meant to address.
“The overall impression is the eastern fringe developments are being driven by profit hungry developers at the expense of local people and the planet.”
The parish council said congestion, flooding, air quality and wildlife would all be affected.
It said: “The focus on urban expansion along the East and Northern Fringes by releasing prime green belt land for development can only be described as a developers’ dream, while disadvantaging many South Gloucestershire communities.”
Siston parish includes part of the Carsons Green and Rockhouse Farm New Neighbourhood development site and all of another proposed development, the 1,000-home North Warmley New Neighbourhood.
The parish council said the areas’ current infrastructure “cannot support the excessive number of homes proposed”.
It said: “The significant reduction in Green Belt areas will reduce biodiversity, increase flood risks, diminish air and water quality, and limit carbon dioxide absorption. These negative impacts contradict claims that the plan will future proof the community against climate change, regardless of the build quality of new homes.”
The parish council said some residents already live in a designated Air Quality Management Area, “where levels of nitrogen dioxide are so high as to be a threat to human health” and infrastructure was “already significantly overloaded, particularly the A4174”.
The parish council said South Gloucestershire Council had not proved any “special circumstances” to justify the impact on Green Belt areas within the parish, which would have to accept extensive housing development while other areas “retained uninterrupted Green Belt status”.
Launching the consultation in March, South Gloucestershire cabinet councillor Chris Willmore said: “We accept that not everyone will like everything in the Plan; some of the decisions we have had to make have been very difficult.
“We share local people’s passion to protect the character of the places they love to live. But we would be doing those people and the next generations a disservice if we simply tried to put up a roadblock to any new building.”