New homes needed to be greener

Councillors cross over gas boiler plan for prestigious new development

Councillors say developers should have gone further to reduce their carbon footprint on a flagship scheme near Bideford which will see 750 new homes built over the next decade.

Torridge District Council’s Green councillors say installing gas boilers instead of more energy efficient systems like air source heat pumps in the first 82 homes of the development was not really addressing climate change.

And they want to make sure that as many of the homes as possible have solar panels on them.

Planning permission was granted to Bloor Homes in principle for 750 homes in Abbotsham in October 2022. The scheme will include a new primary school, 50-bed care facility and affordable homes.

The finer details of the first phase including the layout, scale, landscaping, cycle ways and footpaths around the site and “informal” play space were approved this week by Torridge District Council’s plans committee.

Councillors were told that the developer had gone above the carbon reduction requirement with enhanced insulation and up to 429 solar panels in the first phase of the project.

But Cllr Wendy Lo-Vel (Green, Northam) said she would have expected more on such as “prestigious, modern development”.

“A flagship, well thought out scheme like this should be setting the benchmark for good efficient house building yet it proposes to use gas boilers. These should be houses for the future. The cost to retrofit old houses with modern more efficient energy systems is expensive but they should be standard in new houses.”

Cllr Peter Hames (Green, Appledore) said more than 1,000 homes were due to be built in this area and the impact on the environment from all the housing would be significant, on the landscape, wildlife and energy consumption: “Why are we looking at housing that is going to use gas boilers. With climate change we should be looking at things like air source heat pumps not gas boilers.”

He said he was also concerned about the ecology with bats, badgers, amphibians and dormice being affected when the diggers moved in and the developer not providing all the biodiversity net gain on site.

Cllr Annie Brenton (Lab, Bideford West) said drainage was a problem and the potential pollution in the rivers because the sewage system would struggle to cope . She said one attenuation tank for the first batch of new homes, which is designed to collect excess rainwater and surface water and hold it back temporarily reducing the risk of flooding, was not enough.

Planning officers said the drainage arrangements had raised no objections and in this phase of the development officers had concentrated on getting the landscaping and layout right to be sympathetic to the grade II listed Moreton House next door to the development.

There would be no fences visible from the roadside,  stone walls around the site and a landscaped buffer zone.

Twenty five of the 82 homes would be affordable (30 per cent), including 13 for social rent.

They said that there was no space to include a sustainable urban drainage system (SUDS) such as rain gardens on this site but this would be considered for other phases of the development.

They added that formal play spaces, sport pitches and changing rooms and the new school would follow in phase two of the scheme.