RESIDENTS, councillors and a pressure group are up in arms over proposals for a 100-home development in Dunmow.

Developer Taylor Wimpey wants to build the properties, including affordable housing, on land south of Ongar Road, with a vehicle and pedestrian access from a roundabout junction off of Clapton Hall Lane.

However, the plans have not been well received.

Dunmow Town Council’s planning committee has weighed in with its strong objections and, at a meeting last week, committee chairman Wendy Barron refused to even open a debate.

“The proposed site is outside Dunmow’s development limits so therefore we should strongly oppose this application. There is no need to discuss this any further,” she said. Councillors were unanimous in their agreement.

Pressure group the Dunmow Society has also moved against the plans, and warned that allowing planning permission could open the flood gates for other developers.

“There are now a number of developers who have submitted similar schemes in an attempt to break the district plan guidelines around Dunmow,” said chairman Michael Foster.

“If any of them are allowed to succeed many more will submit similar applications on the basis of precedent and Dunmow will be swamped with large housing schemes. This scheme and the others must not be given approval.”

The application has received dozens of objections from residents, with most raising fears about the scale of the development and the access.

Clapton Hall Road resident Fred Bartlett said: “I am distressed at the thought of the limitations this will bring to my own and others’ vehicular access as a development of this size would bring with it a minimum of 200 cars.

“A development of this scale would surely engulf the area, upsetting the current balance of the rural and the residential. The impact on the lane and the nature of the area, as predominately greenbelt agricultural land, and Dunmow countryside will be enormous.”

Consultancy firm Boyer Planning Ltd is acting as agent on behalf of Taylor Wimpey. Boyer representative David Lander said that his client is “committed to the site’s immediate delivery as a high quality housing development which reflects local needs and settlement character”.

He added: “We consider this site to be a suitable location for housing development in Great Dunmow, which can be delivered at a time where there is insufficient housing land supply identified.”

The deadline for comments to planning authority Uttlesford District Council is today (August 4).

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