Developer behind plan for 600 Shrewsbury homes told to help schools expand

Persimmon Homes and Taylor Wimpey unveiled proposals to build the homes at Weir Hill Shrewsbury earlier this week.

Speaking at Shrewsbury Town Council's planning meeting, Jason Tait, representing the developers, said they had been asked by Shropshire Council to contribute towards expanding existing primary schools, rather than build a new one.

He said: "On the school side of things we have had conversations with the education department over whether they want to extend or look for a new site and they said they would prefer the money to support extension rather than a new school itself."

During the meeting Councillor Peter Nutting also told Mr Tait he would rather see one large recreation area on the site, rather than several pieces of recreation land being proposed by the developers.

He said: "What I would like is somewhere big enough for there to be something like a football pitch or something. Most of what you have given us you could not build on anyway by the river. I want to see enough acreage so you could have some recreation area like a football pitch or a cricket pitch.

"Six hundred houses is a lot of houses and it is a lot of people and they are going to need recreation space."

Richard Hodson, a planning manager for Persimmon Homes, said they would look to see if it would be possible.

The development attracted considerable criticism at a public exhibition on Monday with local residents unhappy about a proposed access road onto Preston Street, and another on to London Road. Mr Tait told the council they would look at issues raised by the public.

He said: "What the exhibition did highlight was a number of issues which have arisen which will need further breakout consultation. We need to consider those issues and how we refine the scheme as we go forward."

A planning application for the development is expected to be submitted in January which, if approved, will lead to construction taking place in stages – beginning with the Preston Street end of the development.

The second access road on London Road would only be added at a later stage as the development grows. Mr Tait also revealed that they had been considering an access through Shrewsbury College.

He said: "Historically there has been some suggestion about the potential for access to this site through the Shrewsbury College site. We have been in discussions with them for some period of time to negotiate terms about access through their site but for various reasons - their time frame and the terms available for us - were not going to work for us so we had to revert to the original access which is further to the south of London Road."