Thanks for supporting our crowdfunder to save Frome

Our crowdfunding appeal to save the beautiful countryside on the edge of Frome has now been closed and we are grateful to everyone who donated.

In April, we launched a crowdfunder appeal to raise funds for a legal letter, challenging the Selwood Garden Community proposal.  Within a few weeks, we reached our target, which is just brilliant.  We then extended the appeal so we could commission a landscape report and you all dug deep again – thank you.  We were able to present these two key pieces of evidence to the public inquiry in August.  

What is this all about?

We are trying to save a huge swathe of beautiful countryside on the edge of Frome, from an application to build 1700 homes, two care homes, new roads and employment land, drive through takeaway and other edge-of-town development. If it goes ahead, the landscape setting of Frome will be destroyed. This ancient town and nearby villages will be swamped with traffic. The landscape of the River Frome valley is beautiful. You can see for yourself in our gallery of landscape photographs below. This is the green lungs of Frome.  A landscape of green fields and hedges, and ancient lanes for walking, horse-riding and cycling.

Selwood Garden Community – neither a “Garden” or a “Community”

The application is called Selwood Garden Community, but this will be anything but a “garden” or a “community”. If granted planning permission, the land will be parcelled up into lots and sold to the highest bidders. We will end up with a disjointed, poorly planned development made up of a patchwork of different housing estates, with each developer having its own design code.

You can read the planning application for yourself on the Somerset Council website here  or search for planning application ref 2021/1675/EOUT under Somerset Council Planning, Area East

Crucially, this is a rural area. It is land that is NOT allocated for development in the Local Plan. Mendip District Council themselves, in two of their own Landscape Appraisals, have said that this land should NOT be developed.

We do need housing, but this is the wrong place

We know that Britain needs more houses, but they must be carefully planned.  Local people must be allowed to have their say. It is just wrong for a huge development like this to be tacked onto Frome as an afterthought.

Frome has already got around 1,250 new homes officially allocated in the Local Plan so this is a massive development in addition!

When the houses are built, they will be too far for anyone to walk to the centre of town.  They will be two miles from the railway station. This will end up as a dormitory development for people commuting to and from their work further afield.

We deserve better than this!

Now the public inquiry is over and we all fought as best we could. Now we must wait for the Secretary of State to make their decision….

Please continue to support our work

CPRE Somerset is a small charity and we often take on big developers!  if you would like to support our work here in Somerset, please make a donation or become a member.

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Thank you.