£18m agreement set to bring forward more than 2,500 homes

Outline plans for more than 2,500 homes have been approved in Worcestershire.

The proposal for the scheme in Foxlydiate have been formally approved following the completion of an £18m legal agreement between the developer and the local planning authority.

The plans, which had been given the go-ahead by Bromsgrove District Council’s planning committee subject to a legal agreement to mitigate the impacts of the development, were approved last week.

The agreement covers a wide range of financial contributions and binding requirements covering transport, education, health, and green infrastructure, with various trigger points for the payments that in full would exceed £18m.

Head of planning and regeneration Ruth Bamford said: “The agreement secures contributions from the developer exceeding £18m towards transport, education, health, and green infrastructure as and when the site develops. All actual house-building there is of course subject to further planning applications, and would be expected to be carried out in phases over a number of years.”

The application grants outline permission for up to 2,560 houses in Foxlydiate including a new local centre, school, and community facilities.

It also approves the configuration of access roads for vehicles and pedestrians, while reserving all other matters for future planning applications – meaning house building could only begin once further applications are granted on a phased basis. The full scheme will take a number of years to complete.

The plans relate to the substantive portion of the land allocated for development at Foxlydiate in the current development plan for Bromsgrove District Council, adopted in 2017 when the land was removed from the Green Belt.

With a small portion of the land in Redditch Borough, the application was ‘cross boundary’, and so a duplicate permission on the application was also issued by Redditch Borough Council.