Please help us to save Frome!

Please can you help with our legal costs as we try to save beautiful countryside on the edge of Frome?

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 application, so called Selwood Garden Community, has been called in by the Secretary of State as it is so significant. This means that a Planning Inspector will decide if it goes ahead, following a public inquiry in July 2025.

We have launched a crowdfunder appeal to raise funds for our legal costs in challenging this damaging proposal.

This is a complex case so we have commissioned the specialist services of a Planning Lawyer from Landmark Chambers to write a legal letter to the Planning Inspector.

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!

Please donate to our appeal

Why we want to protect this landscape

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. Far reaching views will be lost, and the setting of heritage assets will be harmed, if the planning application is approved.

Please help

We are a small, independent charity based in Somerset and we are working with the local community to fight this development. It can feel like we are in a “David and Goliath” situation when taking on large developers, but it is not impossible, and we have won significant cases before!

Our best chance of winning this battle is to clearly point out the legal reasons why this awful development should be refused.

We are hoping to raise £3000 to cover the cost of a legal letter to help convince the Planning Inspector to refuse the application. We will also be speaking ourselves at the Public Inquiry in our capacity as an interested party.

As a small charity, we need your help with legal costs like this.

Please give a donation, however small, to help us with our legal challenge against this dreadful proposal.

Let’s stop SGC and protect this beautiful countryside, so cherished by the people of Frome.

Donate to our appeal

Thank you.