Bid for 75 homes on equestrian centre site in Somercotes

Avant Homes has submitted plans to Amber Valley Council for 75 houses off Birchwood Lane.

The site is currently an equestrian centre and borders an already approved housing development, also from Avant, for 200 houses at Nether Farm.

A decision will be made by the council in the next few months.

This comes nine months after the council disclosed it had listed the site as a potential location for inclusion in its Local Plan – a blueprint for future development up to 2039.

Plans submitted on behalf of Avant Homes detail 30 per cent of the scheme, 22 houses, would be affordable housing.

It says: “The proposals will be designed sensitively to fit in with the character of the area and tie into wider developments. The scheme will provide a high-quality, attractive and distinctive housing scheme which will balance the need for new homes with the need to protect the local environment.

“The proposals will provide a significant boost of up to 75 new homes in a wholly sustainable location.

“The proposals are of a scale proportionate to the size of the settlement and will not have any adverse effects in terms of highway safety, amenity of neighbours, flood risk, ecology or any other environmental requirements.”

This project is the latest in a batch of plans over the past few years for housing development on fields to the west of Somercotes, now totalling 804 houses between the combined sites.

Recent planning applications for homes in the area have been hampered by the area’s proximity to two historic landfills and the hazardous substances connected with them, which are said to be spreading into the wider area.

An investigation from Ivy House into the neighbouring Nether Farm site details homes would need to be built on suspended floors and have membranes installed in their ground floors to prevent harm from hazardous gases linked to the historic landfills.

In an email responding to Avant’s chosen ground investigation company, Travis Baker Geo-Environmental, Rowena Bailey, council scientific officer wrote: “Geo-environmental assessments submitted to accompany planning applications nearby – Nether Farm and Stanley Street – have indicated volatile organic compounds are migrating from the landfill.”