Chipping Sodbury: 90 homes to be built on open countryside

The Florence Gardens housing estate received planning permission in 2018

Plans to build 90 homes on open countryside in South Gloucestershire will go ahead, despite objections.

Cotswold Homes will build the two-storey houses on three fields in Chipping Sodbury, west of Trinity Lane.

Sodbury Town Council, Chipping Sodbury Town Trust and 57 residents were among those who objected to the application.

But South Gloucestershire Council's strategic sites delivery committee agreed with planning officers that the public benefits outweighed the harms.

The application for the estate, called Florence Gardens, includes 32 affordable homes, and almost £600,000 for primary and nursery education, new pedestrian crossings and money for library books.

Also objecting to the plan was South Gloucestershire Council's own public rights of way officer, who said a rural footpath would have to be diverted across roads for the development, while the council's conservation officer raised concerns about views from the site to a Grade I-listed church tower.

'Don't need it'

South Gloucestershire's Lib Dem councillor for Chipping Sodbury and Cotswold Edge, Adrian Rush, said: "We have already said we don't need it."

Mr Rush said the area was already "meeting the demands of the government for our houses for the foreseeable future".

The local authority's Conservative councillor Roger Avenin told a meeting last Thursday: "It's just another example of rural public rights of way being turned into a semi-concrete path," according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

Lib Dem councillor Mike Drew, said: "Once again we have an application which provides 'public open space' when really it is a muddy retention pond.

"I'm not sure we've addressed some objections from local people."

In their decision, a planning officer said new pedestrian and bicycle crossings would improve safety and the majority of the footpath diversion was through open space.

They said the plans for the land opposite the new development included more than 12,000 sq m of open space, including allotments and a play area.

The site is not in the green belt or the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.