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Planners are being asked to agree in principle for up to 12 houses to be built on land off Saltpans road – part of the housing allocation area known as Franc Fief.
Applicants Shire Limited want to develop land to the south of properties Treetops and Hunters Haven in St Sampson. The site forms part of the wider Franc Fief housing allocation which was previously identified as being ripe for hundreds of new homes but is in multiple ownership.
As only outline planning permission is being sought, no details of layout, design or scale are proposed and will need to form the content of a separate planning permission if the principle of development is approved.
But indicative plans show four blocks of terraced houses, parking, and front and rear gardens of differing sizes. The homes indicated are connected to an estate-style street system that could incorporate future housing and vehicle access from existing roads.
A development framework, which guides applicants on what would be acceptable on selected sites, has been mooted for Franc Fief but stalled due to a lack of thorough traffic study for the surrounding area.
Such a framework, or a traffic impact assessment, isn’t necessary for this application as it falls below the 30 homes threshold.
The agent, Collas Crill, notes other applications proposing development only on parts of allocated housing sites have proved acceptable to Planning, notably Pointues Rocques.
The development as proposed also falls below the minimum requirement for some of the developable land to be provided for affordable housing, with the agent rejecting that this could be provided “pro-rata” in hope of a wider housing development of the whole site.
Franc Fief has long been recognised as a future housing location and was identified as a strategic reserve of land in the Island Development Plan.
A 2014 States assessment of viable land estimated that between 133 and 263 homes could be delivered on the whole site.
At that time over 90% of the site was considered developable, with the remainder being of natural or conservation interest, including a quarry noted as being of biodiversity importance.
Restraints were noted as an old vinery on site needing to be cleared, and calls for a thorough assessment of the “suitability of the local road network”.
The idea of building on the site previously provoked concern in the Vale and St Sampson douzaines.
Picture Credit: Google Maps.
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