Public examination of Bath and North East Somerset Council's core strategy set to resume this summer

A public examination into plans to build thousands of new homes across the district is expected to resume this summer. Bath and North East Somerset Council received approximately 1,000 comments from residents during the last round of consultation on its planning blue print, the core strategy, which outlines how the district will develop up to 2029. Policy and environment manager at the authority, Simon De Beer, said the comments made were being assessed by officers and would then be passed to the planning inspector before he resumes his public examination of the council's core strategy in July. Mr De Beer said the council expected it to be held in two parts; the first phase will focus on housing land supply, and the second phase will look at particular sites the council has put forward. In March the council agreed more than 12,700 new homes should be built across Bath and north east Somerset over the next 16 years to meet demand. These include 300 on land between Odd Down and South Stoke, 300 on land near Primrose Hill in Weston, 120 on an extension to the Ensleigh MoD site, which takes in the Royal High School's playing fields and 450 in Keynsham. Hundreds of homes have also been earmarked for the Somer Valley and rural areas but these sites are to be determined by working with local communities and are yet to be identified. Speaking at the council's Housing and Major Projects Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel meeting this week Mr De Beer told members that more than 500 people had responded to the recent six-week consultation on the core strategy and had made around 1,000 comments. He said there had been a high number of comments suggesting the council had under provided for housing. He added: "We have concern on both ends of the spectrum with the housing issue." Comments also raised concerns about using greenfield sites, maximising brownfield sites, availability of land, problems associated with infrastructure such as vehicular access and the potential impact on Bath's World Heritage designation.