Campaigners in bid to block Shrewsbury homes plan
Campaigners have warned that a bid to build 600 homes on some of the county's "outstandingly rich" countryside would be "extremely detrimental".
The Shropshire branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) has written to Shropshire Council's planning department to express its opposition to plans for hundreds of new homes at Weir Hill in Shrewsbury.
The application, from Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon Homes, is currently being processed by the council's planning staff.
In an objection letter Shropshire CPRE criticises both the number of houses planned for the development, and an access road proposed for near the Emstrey roundabout.
It states: "We feel that too many houses are being proposed for this site and with that number detrimental impact is inevitable."
The letter adds: "Our strongest objection however relates to the access road linking the southern part of the development with London Road near the Emstrey Roundabout. It crosses an area of open countryside of landscape importance and skirts the crematorium remembrance garden."
The group also says it carried out a landscape survey of the area in 2003 and concluded that it was not appropriate for development.
The letter states: "A member attended a one-week course on landscape assessment and the survey was completed in 2003.
"It concluded that the landscape of the area covered by the present application was outstandingly rich in character and development within it would be extremely detrimental."
The group is not the only one to have opposed the plans with a number of local residents calling for a re-think over access plans for the site.
