Two long running planning applications will be discussed at the main Mendip Planning Board meeting (July 22) - with the the prospect of hundreds more homes in and around Frome.

At the Mendip meeting they will first discuss plans for land north and south of Sandy's Hill Lane in Frome.

Under Application Number 2019/1671/OTS Silverwood (Ditcheat) Ltd has made an application which includes:

- up to 235 homes

- employment floorspace up to 4,050sqm

- a Drive Thru unit of up to 170sqm

- a food retail building of approximately 1,800sqm

- and a non-food retail unit of approximately 1,400sqm.

The planning board on June 10 deferred a decision for three reasons:

1. To look at alternative/better access arrangements for the site itself including the possibility of an additional access.
2. To look at the re-use of Keyford Farmhouse (and associated buildings) rather than knocking it down.
3. To include a wider green buffer zone between existing houses on Little Keyford Lane and the new proposed housing, in order to protect the setting and tranquillity of the listed buildings, and the amenity of existing residents (area north of Sandys Hill Lane only) .

In response to the first issue, access to the site, the developer has produced reports showing how adding another access point to the west would be problematic because of the complications about ownership. Part of the land in consideration is owned by Henry Boot Developments Ltd while other bits of land are owned by at least two more landowners – part by an off-shore company based in Jersey with the balance unregistered with an unknown number of owners.

They conclude: "Utilising this as an access that we know is unadopted and built to unknown standards, will require third party agreements from an unknown number of landowners and others who have rights to use it

for access. This will be very lengthy process and difficult to procure with no certainty of success. "

The development was first mooted over six years ago.

The second major application which will be looked at is land at Green Pits Lane in Nunney ( Application Number 2020/0158/FUL)

The application was made by BDW Trading on 27th January 2020 and proposed building 82 homes.

Back in 2014 an application for 100 homes on the site refused and the following appeal in 2015 was also dismissed .

That decision was made at the time partly because the site was outside of the settlement boundary for Nunney and was not considered to contribute to the Local Plan at the time.

However in the briefing for Wednesday's meeting planners state: " Members will be aware that the site is allocated in the Local Plan Part II (including proposed changes) and is identified as Policy NN1. Although the process of adopting the plan remains ongoing, at this stage and given the outcome of the examination process in relation to this site, the principle that this is a sustainable location for a residential development is considered sound.

In addition as a result of the need for additional housing allocations within the district, the Inspector as part of the post examination changes qualified that the requirement for 70 dwellings on the site

should be treated as a minimum requirement. On this basis it is considered that significant weight can be attributed to this emerging policy in completing the assessment of this application. "

The full details of the planning applications can be seen here: the Mendip site.