CONTRIBUTIONS totalling more than £850,000 are to be paid towards the costs of new school places, public transport, a walking and cycling path and play equipment as part of a new housing estate development.

Councillors gave the go-ahead for up to 110 homes in September last year, but full planning permission was subject to a Section 106 legal agreement between Monmouthshire Council, developer Vistry Homes, and owners David Edward Hamilton and Carol Ann Frost, of Berkshire, who have agreed to sell the land at Drewen Farm in Monmouth.

Contributions include £495,652 to expand pupil capacity at Monmouth Comprehensive School, £165,000 for a new walking and cycling path between Watery Lane, which leads to the site, and Jordan Way, and £90,000 to improve bus services within, and to and from, the new estate.

The cash could also be used for bus stops or adaptations such as bus stop kerbs.

Environmental improvements will also be funded through the agreement, including £45,000 for the restoration and long-term management of off-site grassland habitats to Sites of Nature Conservation, of SINC, quality to offset biodiversity impacts from the development.

The plans include 660 square metres of community growing space on part of the area allocated as public open space, with the wider open space to be managed and maintained by a management company.

A further £58,000 will be used for play equipment at either Rockfield Park or Drybridge Park, and £2,500 will go toward maintaining the public right of way network within a two-mile radius of the site.

The agreement also ensures that 35 per cent of the properties, which are up to 39 flats and houses, have to be “affordable” with around 70 per cent available for social rent, at Welsh Government set rates, through a housing association.

The remainder would be intermediate homes, offered for sale or rent at below market rates but above social rent levels.

Of the affordable homes, 62 per cent will be one-bedroom flats, 23 per cent two-bedroom houses, 10 per cent three-bedroom houses, three per cent four-bedroom houses, and two per cent two-bedroom bungalows.

Fifty per cent of the affordable homes will have to be built, or ready for occupation, before half of the open market homes can be occupied, and all of the affordable units must be constructed or ready for occupation before 75 per cent of the private homes can be occupied.

Legal agreements are also in place to cover highways improvements, including upgrades to Kingfisher Way, Belle Etoile Drive, and Watery Lane which will be an emergency access, and upgraded to “quiet lane” status for its entire length, with improved connections to St Thomas Road.

The council received 155 objections to the application before it was considered by the planning committee last September, and objections received since then included a video, from a neighbouring garden, of bats flying over the site.

When the outline application was approved in September last year, Dewstow member Tony Easson said: “There’s nearly a million quid there in valuable contributions.”