Plans to move rare habitat sent back to drawing board
CHARD residents will finally find out whether new homes will be built at their town’s southern edge – five years after plans were first submitted.
Persimmon Homes South West originally submitted proposals back in July 2016 to build up to 323 homes on land between the A358 Tatworth Road and the B3162 Forton Road.
These proposals have undergone numerous revisions over the ensuing years, with the number of homes being reduced first to 315, then to 263 and finally to 252.
South Somerset District Council will finally make a decision on these updated proposals tomorrow morning, when its regulation committee meets virtually.
A huge new ‘data centre’ could be built at the site of a former hospital near Swindon.
The planning application has been lodged by Mullhaven Properties to demolish old buildings used to house internet servers and build the new data centre in its place on the site of the old Burderop Hospital, near Wroughton.
The bid says: “The site was formerly occupied by a military hospital, telephone exchange and office building.
“These buildings were demolished in the 1980s and early 1990s and replaced by the existing data centre buildings.
“Owing to the existing data centres’ age and the technology available when these buildings were implemented, the current data centres are no longer fit for their intended use. Their dated designs offer extremely poor performance when considered against the efficiencies offered by the modern equipment and technology of today.”
The company says demand for cloud computing – where data is held on servers remotely from the user’s home or office and is accessible from anywhere – is growing.
Controversial plans to move a rare habitat in a Bath field to make way for 37 houses are being sent back to the drawing board.
Former Bath and North East Somerset Council leader Dine Romero revealed that the land at Englishcombe Lane is no longer set to be transferred to Aequus, the authority’s development company.
Instead it could be sold off with planning permission to another developer, but she is keen to see fresh designs drawn up that deliver social housing and protect the tufa flushes, a rare geological phenomenon.
There was outcry when the council approved its own application for the site last August, weeks after it declared an ecological emergency.
Councillor Romero blamed the seven-month wait for the rethink on the coronavirus pandemic and said she did not have the power to pull the plug on the project, as some had claimed.
Under the approved proposals, the tufa flushes were to be transferred to another site, despite the council’s own ecologist casting doubt on whether the move would work.
Critics accused it of “gross hypocrisy” and more than 5,500 people signed a petition urging it to rethink the decision.
Up to 80 new homes and new industrial units could be built near a recently-completed McDonald’s restaurant near the A303.
Abbey Manor Homes Ltd has submitted plans for a new mixed development on the north side of the A371 Lawrence Hill in Wincanton, mere yards from where the fast food chain opened a new branch in February.
The Yeovil-based developer believes the development is the best way to meet both local housing needs and demand for local employment as the town continues to grow.
South Somerset District Council will decide whether the development will go ahead when its regulation committee meets virtually tomorrow morning.