Plans for 146 homes near notorious roundabout spark objections

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

Plans for more than 100 homes, a hotel and care home next to a notorious south Wales roundabout have taken a major step forward. 

A planning application for the development on agricultural fields in Chepstow has now been submitted, with 13 objections lodged with Monmouthshire County Council in a week. 

The site at Mounton Road and beside the Highbeech roundabout was already included in the council’s replacement local development plan – its blueprint for where new housing and employment sites should be located across the county. 

As that plan is currently subject to independent examination, with a decision due in March, it is considered to be at “submission stage” meaning it can be used when councillors decide if the application can be approved. 

It is seeking permission for 146 homes two and four bedroom homes which would be for open market sale and affordable housing. The local development plan will require 50 per cent of all new housing is affordable. 

Mounton Road is the first “strategic site” in the development plan to come forward to the planning application stage, with a pre-application consultation having been run on behalf of applicants Barwood Development in November and December last year. 

A pre-application consultation on plans for 400 homes, on council owned farmland north east of Caldicot, six miles away, ran through October and November with that site forming half of the East Caldicot strategic site for 770 homes identified in the plan. 

The majority of the objections submitted to the Mounton Road application highlight congestion and the additional strain they believe the development will place on the road network including the Highbeech roundabout which is recognised as a traffic pinch point. 

When the council defended the selection of the site, during the examination of the plan at public hearings in October, it said a transport assessment has estimated the impact of all the proposed development, including the Caldicot site, would result in a “modest” increase of traffic between two to four per cent on the Highbeech roundabout. 

Applicants Barwood has discussed with the council potential development of the site since 2020 while the authority removed a previously earmarked development site, at Bayfield, further north along the A466 Wye Valley Link Road, and insert Mounton Road into its draft plan in 2023. 

The application, which includes detailed reports including  transport assessments, ecological reports and an air quality assessment, is for outline permission with all issues, other than access, reserved for decision at a later date. 

Vehicle access would be from what is described as a “new simple priority junction” from the Wye Valley Link Road, which runs alongside the site. 

The plans show the hotel and care home would each have between 60 and 80 beds with the hotel next to the link road. 

It is also proposed the development, which will also have foot and cycle paths and connect to existing paths, would feature a “mobility hub” which the applicants state could provide “active and sustainable” travel options, including bicycle, electric bicycle and scooter hire, and a space for remote working. 

The developers are also promising open spaces including a “large area of community parkland” and a children’s play area. 

Members of the public have until Wednesday, November 25 to comment on the plans.