Plans for homes in village near Shrewsbury kicked out

Shropshire Council's Central Planning Committee turned down an application from Galliers Homes to build 15 houses at land to the east of Bicton Lane, Bicton, near Shrewsbury.

Bicton is the subject of proposals for hundreds of houses as part of Shrewsbury's Sustainable Urban Extension (SUE).

On top of this another application to build more than 240 homes on Hollyhead Road is in the pipeline, councillors were told at their meeting this week.

Local resident Tim Saul told the committee the village has been the focus of too much development.

He said: "I have lived in Bicton for about 14 years and in the ten years up to 2012 we had about 17 planning applications approved.

"Since then the rate and number of applications received has significantly increased."

He added: "This is not a sustainable rate of development overall and as such I think this specific development needs to be reviewed and rejected."

Mr Saul said the village does not have the infrastructure to cope with the development, claiming that it lacks shops and the nearby school is near capacity.

Councillor Claire Wild also spoke against the application, calling on the committee to reject it because it lies outside the council's development plan boundary for the village.

However, Helen Howie, speaking on behalf of the applicant, said that national planning policy indicates that village boundaries are not definite lines and are no longer considered "black and white".

She also described the plans as "highly sustainable" and said the development would help the council towards its aim of meeting its five year land supply requirements.

Committee member Councillor Andrew Bannerman supported the rejection of the application and said that Bicton had endured a "raw deal" over the past few years.

He said: "Bicton is one of those places where they have really taken a hammering, and there are two or three of them in our area.

"I have a huge amount of sympathy for people there because it seems to me they have had a very raw deal. The hammer blows arrive with ever increasing fury and density."

He added: "I think this is a chance to say, 'All right, Bicton has taken enough', and although it is done by local builders with a good reputation, it is a speculative shot at putting a lot of houses in that green wedge between the old and the new village that local people and policies regard as very important."

However, Councillor Peter Nutting said he did not believe Bicton had been the the focus of housing developers, and described the proposal as a "decent development".

He said: "If you take away the speculative development and the SUE I am not sure it has had a lot of development."

The application was rejected by five votes to four with two abstentions at Thursday's meeting.