130 homes approved despite concerns

Contentious plans for 130 homes near a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) on the edge of Caldicot have been approved, despite concerns that a failure to spread out the affordable housing could lead to “ghetto areas.”

A reserved matters application for the development on fields off the town’s Church Road has been approved by Monmouthshire council’s planning committee.

However, councillors raised concerns over the current “pepper pot” plans for affordable housing.

The council has used the term pepper potting to describe the spreading out of affordable housing across the whole development.

In total there will be 45 affordable homes, comprising 35 per cent of the development as a whole.

The council said it was difficult to pepper pot such a large amount.

Speaking on behalf of residents at the meeting, the Caldicot Castle ward councillor Jo Watkins said that there were concerns about the distribution of the affordable housing throughout the site.

She said: “It is said to be pepper potted throughout the site, but there is a large section of it situation within one section of the site.

“When you bear in mind where the affordable housing is already in the Nedern Rise development, it basically abuts that section.

“It would make a very large concentration of affordable housing in that top section of the area.

“There have unfortunately been a number of incidents in that area of anti-social behaviour and there is a grave concern around residents as to whether this is going to be increased by more single-bed occupancy premises in that area.”

Cllr Roger Harris said that concerns over affordable housing and anti-social behaviour seem to come up all the time.

And Cllr Jez Becker said that it was important to create a proper pepper potted estate.

He said: “I think that’s the best thing for everybody.

“It’s the best thing for inclusion in the community and to break down these problems that we have of perceptions of people.

“For that reason we should look again at the positioning of that housing.”

Cllr Louise Brown agreed that the plans needed to be looked at for the pepper potting.

She said: “I am very much in favour of pepper pot idea because it does avoid ghetto areas for that reason it mixes social housing with private housing, which I think is a good idea.

“It’s often known as a policy to avoid areas identified as ones with social housing.”

Concerns were also raised over drainage and traffic management in the meeting, but the committee was told that they were being dealt with in separate applications.