If you’ve experienced long delays on the Radstock road into Bath, be warned – it could get a whole lot worse. One hundred and seventy one dwellings, known as ‘Sulis Down’, are currently under construction by developers Countryside on two fields near the Park & Ride roundabout.

Landowners, Hignett Family Trust, have now applied for a further 290 houses on two more fields, making a total of 461 homes - so far. If planning permission is granted, it would mean that vehicles from all 461 dwellings would feed on to the Park & Ride roundabout from a single point of entry/exit - and all would have priority over traffic coming from Radstock direction.

Images were taken in March 2023 before any of the new houses were completed and show rush hour traffic has a long tail back, sometimes as far as Dunkerton. And yet the developers claim that this number of new houses will have no significant effect on the local traffic situation. Common sense indicates that it will cause serious jams.

There are many other reasons why this latest development on agricultural land should not go ahead. What happened to brownfield before green field? Is a giant cul de sac without public transport a viable site? Should this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty be concreted over? What are the required ‘’exceptional circumstances’’ to justify it? Is 461 houses without community facilities a sustainable development? Should productive agricultural land be sacrificed for executive homes?

Is it justifiable to cut down over 70 trees with Tree Preservation Orders on them to make road access to these fields?

B&NES is currently several years ahead of its target for new housing, thanks to all the brownfield riverside development.

The South of Bath Alliance is working hard to defend this valuable natural landscape from development. The fields are an important part of the Green Setting of the World Heritage Site as designated by UNESCO. For further details, see SoBA’s website: www.soba.org.uk. You can sign up to receive emails updating you as the situation develops.

If you have an opinion about this development, you have until September 25th to make your views known to the planning department at Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Email [email protected] quoting the reference 22/02169/EOUT, or write to Bath and North East Somerset Council, Lewis House, Manvers St, Bath BA1 1JG.

Jenny John