450 Homes at Roundways - Decision on Thursday

On Thursday, members of the South Glos Strategic Sites Delivery Committee will meet to discuss the fate of the Land East of Roundways.

Bloor Homes want to build 450 homes on the land and have put in an appeal to the Government so, ultimately, the decision will now be made by the Government, not by South Glos.

But to help the Government arrive at a decision they need to know what South Glos’ decision would have been had it made one - hence the meeting on Thursday which will arrive at that decision.

Local Lib Dems have been campaigning against large scale development in Coalpit Heath for many, many years - but Government aspirations for huge numbers of more houses coupled with their new rules for the Green Belt are making the land harder and harder to defend - so much so that the most recent batch of changes to the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (published only in late August) have left South Glos officers in the position where they have had to recommend that committee members APPROVE the application on Thursday.

But, officers don’t make that decision - the committee members do.

That’s why I, alongside members of the public and representatives from the Parish Council will be at the meeting - all making the case for why the application should be refused:

The land is NOT allocated in the draft South Glos Local Plan; the land is in the Green Belt and I believe there is a strong case for arguing it is not grey belt; the single access point for c. 1000 cars by Manor School is dangerous - and Badminton Road couldn’t cope with them anyway; our schools and healthcare facilities are overloaded; and it’s an ecological disaster - the developers admit 13 Skylark and 5 Yellowhammer territories would be lost to the development - both red-list protected species. 

The meeting is held in public, and members of the public are able to speak - although only for 5 minutes in total, and some residents have registered to speak already. Members of the public are able to attend to listen and show support too. 

Meeting details:

📍 Kingswood Civic Centre
🗓️ Thursday 17th September
⏰ 2:00pm (although Roundways is the second main item on the agenda). 

The meeting will also be livestreamed at the following link: https://southglos.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/1122783