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Gloucestershire Business News

Go-ahead for housing on commercial land

Cheltenham Borough Council's Planning Committee has voted in favour of a development of 60 homes.

The development by Revival Developers is on land at North Road West and Grovefield Way on the outskirts of the town, close to the landmark Cotswold BMW garage.

The 5.5ha site, which is also close to Aldi, Costa and a large children's nursery, is currently undeveloped. The new development will include 60 homes (40% affordable) and up to 550sq m for flexible commercial use.

The site forms part of an allocated site for employment use. Despite the proposals including some commercial use, generally residential development on this sort of site wouldn't be approved.

But with Cheltenham Borough Council currently unable to demonstrate a five-year supply of housing land and the latest published housing supply figure standing at just 2.52 years, 60 new homes would make a real difference in alleviating the shortfall.

Cllr Frank Allen (Lib Dem, Swindon Village) said he felt the houses needed building as soon as possible, taking into account Cheltenham's 2.52-year housing supply.

But local councillor, Cllr Adrian Bamford (Lib Dem, Up Hatherley) said he was 'staggered' when he realised the access was going to come from North Road West, which he described as a quiet country lane, rather than Corinthian Way, which is a purpose-built road designed to deal with a large volume of traffic.

He expressed his concern at the loss of biodiversity from removing the hedge to make way for the new access and urged the committee to reconsider the proposed access.

John Hindley, principal development coordinator of Gloucestershire County Council, confirmed the highways authority had initially had concerns about the access and said the developer wanted it to come from North Road West rather than Corinthian Way 'because it will make the new estate a nicer place to live'.

Cllr Glenn Andrews (Lib Dem, Lansdown) said he didn't understand the reason for the access road, but would be supporting the scheme.

He continued: "I see there is affordable and, I'm presuming, social housing. If you're on a social housing list, we don't have a two-and-a-half year housing supply issue, we have a zero-year housing supply issue."

Cllr Paul Baker (Lib Dem, Charlton Park) said: "I would be really concerned if this was refused. There will be plenty of lanes of that size which access estates. We're looking at 60 houses. The amount of traffic that is going to generate is not significant.

"To me, it makes sense to have a residential development and a commercial development with no access in between.

"Housing, housing, housing is so important for our town and 40% affordable is even more important."

The committee voted nine to one in favour of the development, with Cllr Adrian Bamford voting against the scheme due to his concerns about the access road.

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