Plans to build up to 300 homes on a green field increasing a village by a third have been cut back by the company involved.
But on Tuesday last week, the scheme’s promoters refused to say how many homes have been taken out of the controversial plan for land between Lodge Road and Tape Lane, Hurst.
Instead, they want residents to wait for the company’s public exhibition at Hurst Village Hall on Thursdays October 7 and 14, from 3.30pm-7.30pm. The new plans will be on show there.
A spokesman said: “We don’t want to pre-empt the public exhibition by putting too much information in the public domain beforehand.”
They’re now suggesting under 300 homes.
Conor Roberts of Mactaggart & Mickel, the promoters, said fewer homes were now being proposed compared to the initial plans they consulted on.
Residents in that consultation had identified a number of important issues.
“We are seeking to respond to these as part of our revised proposals,” he added.
M & M had also made changes after comments from Wokingham Borough Council’s highways department.
Residents have been asked to attend the exhibition or look at the changes online at www.landeastoflodgeroad.co.uk and comment on them.
Protect Hurst Action Group said: “We will be recommending to all our members not to engage with this consultation as it makes no difference to the number of houses proposed for this site – there shouldn’t be any development as this land is outside the development limit.
“If this proposal were to go ahead, then it will make it very difficult to argue the case against any future development on any other site outside the development limit.
“This site is a vital piece of countryside which plays a vital contribution to the rural character of Hurst.”
The 2019 WBC Housing Site Assessment had assessed the site for the Local Plan as unsuitable for development. It said that while adjacent to Hurst, it failed to achieve a satisfactory relationship to the existing settlement, forming a large-scale infilling of an area more related to the open countryside.
When McTaggart & Mickel submitted an outline planning application for the site, PHAG said it would then recommend its members object to permission being given.
John Osborne on behalf of Hurst Village Society (HVS) said the society hoped as many local residents as possible would attend the public exhibitions displaying Mactaggart & Mickel’s ‘revised proposals’ for the land.
HVS considered it inappropriate to comment further “at this stage until we like everybody else have seen and are aware what those ‘revised proposals’ are”.
The group added: “In the meantime however, we are regularly updating the planning page on the HVS web-site dealing specifically with the proposed development, in order to provide as much information as possible to everybody on all matters relating to these proposals, and hope that individual residents will share with us their views and or concerns.”
