DUNMOW’S long-awaited north-western bypass could be open in 10 months – if a new housing development is approved.
Bovis Homes has bought the controversial Section 4 site of the Woodlands Park estate after a scheme for 190 homes on the land was blocked by local planning authority Uttlesford District Council (UDC) in 2010 and rejected again at appeal.
Chelmsford-based Wickford Development Co Ltd had promised to finish the relief road in 18 months – enabling traffic from the west to join the northbound B184 to the Eastons and Thaxted without driving through Dunmow town centre – if it was given the green light, but councillors decided the scenic site should be protected.
Bovis hopes its scheme, with a reduced density of 125 homes on the 27.5 acres (11.1 hectares) of former agricultural land, will persuade UDC’s development control committee to think again.
The developer wants to demolish the former Brookfield Farmhouse and, as well as the new homes, build estate roads, garages, car parking, footpaths, cycleways, bicycle stores and refuse storage.
It will also create public open space, carry out landscaping and install foul and surface water drainage with a pumping station, a sewer along the B184 and a dry balancing pond.
In return, Bovis pledges that 40 per cent of the new homes – up to 50 in all – will be affordable and that, as a bigger developer than Wickford, it will be able to operate a part-exchange scheme and ensure they sell more quickly after concerns were raised over the sluggish rate of construction elsewhere on the estate.
As well as completing the bypass within 10 months of the go-ahead from highways authority Essex County Council, Bovis would transfer public open space – and maintenance money – to UDC, contribute to early years and child-care facilities provided by the county council, give £50,000 to improve public transport and provide two bus stops.
The Helena Romanes School at Parsonage Downs would also benefit, with £225,000 to spend on bus parking and turning facilities on campus, additional car parking and enhanced playing field provision, including “possible acquisition of off-site facilities”.
In its submission to UDC, Bovis says: “With the revisions to the proposals, there is now no question that the balance between the damage to the countryside and the benefits that would result from the development is such that planning permission should be granted.”
Public consultation on the application closes on January 19.
