The redevelopment site pictured this week
Fifty “affordable” homes are now being proposed for the Chief Trading Post site in Barry Road at Oldland Common by a social housing provider.
As part of the redevelopment of the old nurseries site, outline planning permission was granted at the end of last year to Oldland Common LLP for 50 homes – of which 35% were expected to be affordable – and a community/health surgery building.
At the same time full planning permission was granted for a retail/café building and six supported living homes on the site.
Despite the site being in the Green Belt, the redevelopment plans were approved by South Gloucestershire Council because it was making use of previously developed land and the overall public benefits were said to outweigh the harm.
All the greenhouses and buildings have been demolished
Now Alliance Homes have announced that they are working with developer Countryside Partnerships to plan and build 25 homes for rent and 25 shared ownership homes at the site, where a demolition company has razed all the buildings to the ground in recent weeks.
Alliance Homes say: “The important distinction in our proposal is in the provision of affordable homes to meet significant demand. At the outline planning permission stage, it has been expected the development would be a mix of open market sale and affordable homes.
“However, we’re now pleased to be submitting a reserved matters application in which 100% of the homes are affordable.”
The properties would be mostly two and three-bed homes, with a small number of one and four-bed homes.
People living nearby are being asked by Alliance Homes for their opinion of the latest proposals in advance of a planning application being lodged with the council.
How new homes on the site might look
Alliance Homes began in 2006 as North Somerset Housing with a stock transfer of properties from North Somerset Council. They currently own and manage around 6,500 homes and work in partnership with local, regional and national agencies.
They say they have a strong track record in the delivery of new homes, with plans to build 2,000 more in the next 10 years. One of their recent schemes is the shared ownership apartments at Keyne Court in Rock Road, Keynsham.
Keyne Court in Keynsham is an Alliance Homes scheme
Staff at the popular café and farm shop at the Chief Trading Post were made redundant between Christmas and the New Year amid uncertainty about when the new café and retail building would be built.
Meanwhile the likelihood of the proposed community/surgery being built on the site as a replacement for the current Hanham Health branch surgery in Oldland Common High Street, where accommodation is cramped, remains uncertain as there is no health funding available.
