100-home Shrewsbury scheme for families is given the go-ahead

Shropshire Council's planning officers have granted consent to an application for the estate on a site to the west of Battlefield Road.

The land will now be marketed for a developer to take on the scheme – intended for medium-priced housing that families can afford.

Les Stephan, managing director of town planning consultant Les Stephan, which acted as agent on the application, said they were delighted to have gained approval.

A report from Shropshire Council's planning officers said that the application had been granted approval because it would provide a "sustainable" development.

It stated: "The site is an allocated site within the SAMDev plan and the proposed development is considered to represent sustainable development in a sustainable location having regard to the three dimensions of sustainable development and is therefore acceptable in principle."

The appearance and layout of any housing on the site will have to be confirmed with a follow-up reserved matters application, but officers said that the development would have no negative impact on local residents.

It states: "Layout, scale, appearance and landscaping of the scheme are reserved for later approval but it is considered that an acceptable and appropriately designed scheme could be achieved that would have no significant adverse impact on residential amenity and would not result in significant or demonstrable harm to the character and appearance of the locality."

The outline planning consent gives three years for a developer to put in an application for reserved matters – which would then give them another two years to begin construction, providing approval is granted.

Mr Stephan said that the project currently includes "quite a lot of open space" with measures to screen the site from the nearby ABP Food Group site.

In response to the application, Historic England said it would not object but would need to consider the reserved matters to decide whether the development would cause harm to Shrewsbury's historic battlefield – within which the development sits.

A response to the application said: "In our view, the development will cause some harm to the significance of the battlefield by development within its setting, and it is only in the detailed planning stage that this level of harm can be fully assessed and mitigated. Our primary concern is the height of the development and our initial view is that all development should be lower than that of the adjacent Mayfield Close development."

The Battle of Shrewsbury, which took place in 1403, saw the army of King Henry IV defeat a rebel army led by Sir Henry 'Hotspur' Percy.