Villagers have objected to a planning application to build 32 homes behind a wooded area.
Antler Homes wants to build 32 homes on 3.83 hectare of land East of Osborne Lane, in Newell Green, Warfield village, Bracknell.
Ten of the houses would be three-bedroom, five will be two-bedroom, one will be a one-bedroom home and five will have four or more bedrooms.
A previous application to build 37 dwellings, including 13 affordable dwellings was refused and an appeal dismissed in 2023.
A significant part of the land is wooded, and the woodland would need to be cut through to provide access to the houses.
The parish council, objecting to the application, saying that it didn’t take account of the reasons that they’d previously refused it, and recommended to the borough that they nix it again.
According to the parish council, the applicant refers to the failure of Bracknell Forest to earmark enough land for houses, but they don’t think that justifies the ‘harm’ that they say this application would cause considering they say that there are other applications coming along that will fulfil the need.
It says that the proposal is to develop a woodland area that will kill valued and protected trees either immediately through trees that are deliberately removed or later due to cutting through the roots of others.
The proposed site is outside the boundary of Warfield so doesn’t comply with either the policy of Bracknell Forest plan or the Warfield plan and they say it would be an urban development in a well-established countryside area which they shouldn’t support.
They say that developing this site would threaten a ‘local gap’ and make Warfield and Newell Green blur into neighbouring communities and damage the setting of the next door Grade II listed buildings, St Michael’s Grange and associated Grade II barns as well as the Grade II listed Newell Hall and risk encircling Newell Hall, further diminishing the value of its setting.
The parish council also says that biodiversity will be lost as the habitat will be disturbed and reduced during and after this development.
According to them, the area has a variety of wildlife in residence, and roaming through it, whose natural grazing, feeding and roaming paths will be diminished.
They also say that the proposed buildings together with their design and form are out of keeping with the area in and around Osborne Lane and will bring with them an increased urbanising effect along an ancient lane.
By contrast the developers assert that no loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats would be caused by the development. According to them, the site is “entirely grass and currently used as paddocks”.
