People in Bridgwater vow to keep fighting plans for 750 homes near M5
The plans have been put on hold by the government and could still be called in
People living in east Bridgwater have vowed to keep fighting plans for 750 new homes next to the M5.
A planning committee voted in early September to approve outline plans for the homes, a primary school and a community hub between Bower Lane and the motorway.
People living nearby say the development will swallow up green space and add to existing pressure on roads, GP appointments and schools.
Somerset Council's planning committee north, which handles major applications within the former Sedgemoor area, backed the plans on 8th September.
What has been approved
The proposals offer only 45 affordable homes.
They form the central development within the East Bridgwater housing allocation in the Sedgemoor Local Plan, which envisions at least 1,200 homes in the area by 2032.
Countryside Partnerships is in the closing stages of delivering 260 homes at the Strawberry Grange site, north of the A372 Westonzoyland Road.
That development includes the first phase of a spine road, which will eventually run all the way to the A39 Bath Road.
Barratt Homes is seeking consent for the first 178 homes at the Folletts Farm site on Dunwear Lane. A decision is expected before the end of the year.
With a possible legal challenge hanging in the balance, people in eastern Bridgwater have come together to speak out against the scale of development and to demand more funding for local services.
Liz Browne, who sits on Bridgwater Without Parish Council, said there was "enormous concern" among people living nearby about the impact of such large-scale house-building at this end of the town.
She said: "We felt that the planning committee was largely railroaded into approving this, and the cumulative impacts of all the developments we're going to have around here have not been adequately considered."
"We already have enormous congestion in the town, people are struggling to get GP appointments - and that's when they haven't even started really the building."
"Strawberry Grange isn't complete, Folletts Farm hasn't even started, and now we have another 750 houses without the impacts being considered."
Concerns over green space and flooding
Lesley Astridge said the developments were taking away much-needed green space and having a severe negative impact on people's quality of life.
She said: "I love walking my dog, and green spaces around this area have been swallowed up with development of one sort or another."
"I used to walk down Dunwear Lane, taking the dog along the canal - and as you go along the canal, you've got more and more industrial buildings going up. We're losing our local green spaces."
Ms Browne said: "We have very few parks and open spaces in the east of Bridgwater - we're very poorly provisioned."
"It's lovely to have that green wedge between the current built environment and the motorway - and that's going to be completely swallowed up. It's just going to be an urban concrete jungle."
"We've got a mental health crisis, we've got an obesity crisis - and if there's not enough places for people to walk and enjoy nature, these will only escalate."
"We've already had a lot of hedgerow being removed for the Folletts Farm development. We lost a beautiful traditional orchard a couple of years ago - there is nowhere for nature to go."
East Bridgwater is relatively low-lying, which puts the new homes at risk of localised flooding on top of their proximity to the River Parrett.
Carol Lott said: "The local people who have lived here for a long time, they know what's good, they know what's bad, they know what works - but no-one listens to that."
"The monks of the Middle Ages were better water engineers than the people we've got today, to be honest - because they drained the Levels with huge drainage ditches and rhynes that all flowed out into the Parrett (when the Parrett was going back into the sea) and took all the water away."
"The more we concrete over all our green spaces, the more you're covering porous land with non-porous material."
"I think the flooding, especially in this area so close to the Parrett, is going to get worse and worse and worse."
Traffic and congestion
Until the spine road is delivered, all traffic from the three development sites will be directed onto the A372.
That will put further pressure on an existing bottleneck into the town centre.
People in the area have been trying since the mid-2000s to push Somerset County Council to create a new relief road to the south.
It would connect Dunwear Lane to the Colley Lane industrial estate and provide an onward connection to either the town centre or junction 24 of the M5.
Chris Francis said the issues surrounding the delivery of the Celebration Mile, which will be partially reversed in the new year, have compounded existing congestion problems.
He said: "The traffic is unbelievable. It took me 45 minutes this morning to go two miles - thanks to the Celebration Mile, because you can't go both ways on East Quay and Salmon Parade."
Feeling ignored
People living nearby are able to object to any planning application in writing on the council's planning portal, or to speak when plans come to public committees.
But with housing targets rising and the sites already allocated for development, many people feel their concerns are being ignored.
Brian Hale said: "I don't believe for one minute that the local council has got any interest whatsoever in existing residents."
"All they seem to be interested in is letting developers make money. It doesn't matter what meetings we go to, we're told: it's done and dusted. I think that's absolutely disgusting."
Steve Boyland said: "At all these council meetings, the councillors and the officers we meet just show us utter contempt. They don't care for our opinions at all."
"The council's making the money and they're determined they're going to make it no matter what we say."
Local authorities legally earn income from planning application fees. They also secure funding for local infrastructure through either Section 106 agreements or the community infrastructure levy (CIL).
Sarah Baker, whose daughter Daisy-May has special needs, said the homes would put additional pressure on schools already struggling to meet the needs of vulnerable children and young people.
She said: "We have a huge number of young people with learning disabilities, and many older people who have had hip and knee surgeries."
"We do not have the suitable areas to be able to walk and allow that stress relief people need - we need a safe environment, as do our children."
Ms Browne, a registered nurse, said:
"The new school is not going to be built for at least five years."
"That was also going to double as a community facility. Nobody is certain how that would actually work in practice with safeguarding and so forth - now that may be off the table."
"We don't have any community facility for the massive amount of people that are going to be coming into the area."
What happens next
Although the committee voted to approve the plans on 8th September, the council cannot issue the decision notice.
That is because central government has placed a "holding direction" on the application, following an intervention by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).
The plans may now be called in by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), which could result in a public inquiry at some point in 2027.
Even if outline consent is ultimately given, a reserved matters application with detailed plans will still need to be approved before any building can begin.
Mr Hale said: "We will keep on going to meetings and protesting - but it would be nice if occasionally at one of these meetings, they would let us talk."
Alan Hurford said: "My biggest concern is the failure of anybody to actually listen to anything that we are saying."
"The council's highways engineers and advisers don't listen - but we drive in and out of here every day of the week."
"We keep hearing the developer can't afford more money for affordable housing and the NHS - so why doesn't the council turn around and put this site out to tender, to offer other companies the chance to deliver things we actually want?"
"If they can't make money with it, why should we pay for it? We're paying for their lack of business sense."