8:20am Friday 27th November 2009
A HOUSEBUILDER is making a bid to speed up the building of more than 140 homes in Monmouthshire.
Barratts Homes wants to develop Merton Green, just south of the RAF training centre in Caerwent, but was prevented for doing so until sewerage works were upgraded.
The company have now offered an alternative solution, and officers have recommended the plans for approval.
Permission for 145 homes was granted at the site last June, with a condition no development takes place until improvements to the public sewage system were made.
A survey of the sewers at Merton Green in 2007 found the system only had capacity for an additional 70 homes.
Permanent improvements by Welsh Water are not planned to be complete until October 2010, but instead the developer has come up with a temporary drainage system.
This will see waste stored and not released into the system until after peak times.
It is seeking the original condition be lifted, and has also applied for a smaller scheme of 132 homes.
This will include eight affordable homes, and a "local equipped area of play" to be paid for as a condition of planning.
Caerwent Community Council has opposed both plans, saying the existing condition should still stand.
Kevin Evans, a community councillor in Caerwent, said there are major problems with sewerage structures in Caerwent.
“It is not capable of taking the additional workload,” he said.
But county councillor Phil Murphy said he believed the new scheme will resolve many of the issues, and that similar measures had been successful in West Wales.
He said: "It will safe guard the improvements to the sewage and money to secure local community facilities," he said.
Welsh Water told the council’s officers it had not agreed to the variation and suggest no occupation take place until improvements to the sewerage system are complete.
Councillors will look at the scheme at Monmouthshire's planning meeting next Tuesday.
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