PLANNERS have refused a developer’s plan to build up to 125 new homes on ‘prime farmland’ after villagers claimed it would overload local roads, schools and GPs.

Cheshire-based Gladman Developments wanted outline permission to build on a 5.67-hectare site at Carisbrook Road in Mitcheldean.

But more than 300 residents wrote to the Forest Council claiming the large new estate, housing around 500 people, would ruin the traditional village, with up to 250 more cars clogging its streets, and its GP surgery and schools already full.

More than 150 villagers packed a public meeting at the community centre in January to discuss the plan, with all speakers expressing their opposition, while Mitcheldean Parish Council also objected, and Gloucestershire County Council raised highway and flooding concerns on the triangle of land.

Recommending refusal, Forest planning officer Tony Pope told councillors at yesterday’s (Tuesday, March 12) planning meeting the plan represented “unsustainable development in the countryside” on Grade A agricultural land.

It would also damage the setting of the Grade I-listed medieval St Michael and All Angels Church, which has a spire that can be seen from far away, he said, while there was insufficient information about Roman archaeology on the site, the impact on roads, bats and flood risk.

Land at the former George pub, the former Townsend house nursing home, and the old Cotterells bus station was already available for housing and should be developed without causing ‘major disturbance’ to the village, councillors were told.

Resident Lisa Harding said: “Mitcheldean has already seen two fairly large estates added in recent years, but these pale in comparison to the proposed estate planned for this land north of Carisbrook Road, which is unnecessary, far too large and would engulf the traditional village.

“At the moment the traffic already queues from the mini roundabout right back to the centre of the village by the church every morning, and it is impossible to drive through the village at 5pm.”

Fellow resident David Tingle added: “A development of this size would mean Mitcheldean is basically a town without the infrastructure and facilities of a town.”

Andrew Hutchins and Tina Wilks-Hutchins told planners they live opposite the proposed access junction, which would make it dangerous for them and their neighbours driving onto the ‘already very busy’ Carisbrook Road.

“The land that the developer wants to build on is Grade A agricultural land which is an important wildlife habitat and home to rare newts, bats and hedgehogs, and also merlins and buzzards,” they added.

“This land has been deemed by Mitcheldean Parish Council as not to be part of the Neighbourhood Development Plan, and should be kept as agricultural Green Belt land.

“The school is already oversubscribed and the doctor’s surgery is also.

“There are also very few job opportunities in Mitcheldean, so this housing development would be a dormitory estate with people having to travel outside the village to work.”

Gloucestershire County Council archaeologist Charles Parry also said the wider landscape contained “extensive archaeological remains relating to prehistoric and Roman settlement and activity.”

“There is in my view high potential for archaeological remains to be present within the proposed development area.

“I am therefore concerned that ground works and intrusions required for the proposed development may have an adverse impact on significant archaeological remains,” he said.

Gladman said it aimed to create “a sensitively designed and high-quality place which complements the character of Mitcheldean”.

The proposal included 40 per cent social housing, with green spaces, recreational routes and a new children’s play area, it added.