CHARD residents will find out shortly whether 200 new homes will be built on their doorstep.

Kier Living South West has applied to build houses on a greenfield site between the A358 Tatworth Road and the B3162 Forton Road at the southern end of the town.

The site forms part of the Chard Eastern Development Area (CEDA), which is designed to deliver thousands of new homes, employment land and school places over the next decade.

The plans will be debated in detail by South Somerset District Council’s area west committee on January 16 – but a final decision could be taken elsewhere at a later date.

Under the council’s Local Plan, development on the eastern and southern side of Chard was intended to deliver more than 3,200 homes by 2028, along with two new primary schools, 19 hectares of employment land and new roads.

Outline planning permission for the Tatworth Road site was awarded to Gladman Developments in 2017, before it was sold to the Exeter-based Kier.

Of the 200 homes earmarked for the site, 35 per cent will be affordable (the equivalent of 70 dwellings) and will range from one-bedroom flats to four-bedroom houses.

There will be access points on both Tatworth Road and Forton Road, with a play and recreation area being provided at the southern end of the site and pedestrian links being created to an existing play area to the north.

A Kier spokesperson said: “These access points have been designed to ensure that sufficient capacity will be achieved to cope with the scale of the new development.

“New pedestrian and cycle links are proposed which connect the existing foot-way and cycle network with the new development and the surrounding area.

“Additional pedestrian and cycle links have been provided from within the development to adjacent existing play facilities.”

Chard Town Council has recommended the plans be refused, citing concerns over the location of amenities to current properties and the stages in which the new road through the development will be constructed.

Somerset County Council has warned the road could not form part of a new spine road, designed to eventually link the A358 Tatworth Road to the A30 Crewkerne Road.

A spokesperson said: “The road taken as a whole would not be able to safely and appropriately provide the link road infrastructure.

“The design of the road is not suitable as a link road, but as a non-strategic road it would be suitable for providing residential access and would cope with some additional through traffic.”

Andrew Gunn, the district council’s planning officer, said in his written report that the development would contribute towards the regeneration of Chard.

He said: “This phase of the regeneration, of which this site is an important part, will deliver around 1,360 dwellings and new key highway infrastructure linking the A30 on the eastern side of the town to the A358 in the south.

“This new highway link will not only open up both new housing and employment land, but when complete will remove pressure from the town centre junction.

“It is accepted that there will be some short-term pain before longer-term gain, before completion of the new highway infrastructure.

“From a Chard perspective, housing delivery has been much slower than anticipated in the local plan and, therefore, this scheme would make a positive contribution towards the town’s housing needs.”

Councillors voted in June to refuse plans by Persimmon Homes South West for 315 homes on land adjacent to the Kier site, arguing that the additional traffic it would generate would overwhelm the town’s road network.

The council’s regulation committee – which can overturn refusals of major housing developments – agreed in July to postpone a final decision until after further negotiations between Persimmon and council planning officers had taken place.

The council’s area west committee will meet at The Guildhall in Chard to discuss the Kier plans on January 16 at 5:30pm. The public are welcome to attend.

If the plans are refused, the final say will be taken by the regulation committee when it next meets in February.