FIVE?hundred new homes will be created within the next two years now that county planners have accepted just three plans for housing developments.

Three outline applications - plans approved in principle without any details of materials to be used - were scrutinised by Monmouthshire County Council’s (MCC) planning committee on Tuesday 6th November and taking advice from the planning officers in charge of the plans decided to give permission for the housing boom.

The three sites they looked at were in Raglan, where 111 homes on the Chepstow Road have met with fierce opposition from some local residents, 130 dwellings on land east of Church Road, Caldicot, and up to 291 homes south of Crick Road, Portskewett, which will also include a care home and public open space.

Members were told the 7.7 hectare Raglan site was outside the scope of the local development plan (LDP) and would have a new access onto Monmouth Road, the proposal would provide 3.72 hectares, about 48 per cent of the whole site with a green site opposite the school and a community orchard.

The restrictive covenant was not considered a hindrance to granting planning.

The local county councillor, Cllr Penny Jones said there were two problems with the application; the site and the large number of houses proposed which would have an impact on the local infrastructure as the plans would increase Raglan by 36 per cent.

Cllr Giles Howard said that to expect a small village like Raglan to make up the shortfall of the county’s housing allowances is plainly wrong. However other councillors spoke about the need for affordable housing.

Cllr Maureen Powell said she knows residents who are ‘desperate’ for housing and the community needs to keep their youth. “It’s the young people who need these homes,” she said.

Despite Raglan resident Colwyn Knight appealing to the members of the planning committee to turn the application down, the plans were approved.

Speaking after the meeting, Alex Dyer, chair of Raglan Village Action Group said: “The residents of Raglan are can not believe this decision. We have all worked tirelessly in the past few months to fight this application and our efforts have been ignored by the planners. We presented a strong case to the Planning Committee and asked that they applied good judgement. We enjoyed good support from our MP David Davies, our County Councillor, Penny Jones and Raglan Community Council but they were also ignored.

“We would prefer to have worked with MCC to discuss the imminent LDP in a positive manner, but we are now faced with lodging an appeal against this appalling decision. This will involve us in considerable abortive costs and energy, as well as tying up considerable resources at MCC”.

The site at Portskewett is within the allocated sites of the LDP and has been significantly amended by planning officers who were looking to improve the number of houses to allow for larger public spaces. Planning officer Craig O’Connor said that the care home site would create jobs and would have a massive community benefit and create 40 to 60 full time jobs.

Cllr Peter Fox, county and community councillor for the Portskewett area re-iterated the nature of some of the concerns around the ‘infrastructure overload’

“We definitely need more houses in the area, we have a duty to our children to provide that and I welcome the facility of a care home, but we need to retain the infrastructure of the community of Crick Road,” he said.

Members were told the site at Caldicot will have 85 open market houses and is predicted to see 20 extra educational spaces created.

The local member, Cllr Joanne Watkins said that this has been a high controversial development and the vast majority of residents were against it.

“This site is not in the LDP” she said, “the doctors surgery has very long waiting times and it is impossible to get NHS dentist treatment, and local schools are full to capacity. I challenge this council, Caldicot’s primary schools are full and we cannot build houses and then wait for 106 monies before we can put in the primary school places we need,” she said.