Tree-felling development rejected by councillors

IT pleases me to see that what a councillor called "ecological vandalism on a grand scale” by a developer is not to be rewarded. Not yet, at least.

Wiltshire’s southern area planning committee yesterday registered its opposition to the construction of 32 houses on former garden land off Southampton Road, Alderbury.

Prior to the planning application being submitted, 150 mature trees on the site were ring-barked and felled, making an ecological assessment of its former value as a wildlife habitat impossible.

The councillors were shown slides of what now looks like a patch of scrubland.

Cllr Richard Britton described the developers’ offer to join every householder up to a wildlife trust as “a joke, surely”, and their proposal to provide each home with bat and bird boxes as “window dressing”.

He pointed out that planners are supposed to approve developments that improve biodiversity and said that the scheme for 32 houses on the plot in question “goes nowhere near enough to provide green corridors and dark spaces”.

The committee also heard that Alderbury has seen a 14 per cent growth in housing in recent years, “more than its fair share”, and this plot is outside its officially approved development boundary.

Wiltshire strategy defines it as a large village where there should be “not too much” development, an officer explained.

Residents voiced worries about the road access, where speeding traffic trying to get to the front of the queues on the A36 is already a danger.

One said the developers had shown “complete and utter contempt for the planning system” and an area of pleasant woodland had been reduced to a wasteland.

Parish council chairman Elaine Hartford said the site had been “desecrated”. The loss of trees would increase the likelihood of flooding, and proposal was for overdevelopment that would be totally out of character in a rural village.

No representative of the developers, 1215 Heritage Homes, spoke at the online meeting, which the public were able to follow on Microsoft Teams.

The company has appealed against the council’s failure to rule for or against the application despite protracted negotiations, and the issue will now be settled by a government inspector.