The planning committee meeting to consider the reserved matters application for Foundry Lea (Vearse Farm) has been confirmed as 4 August and will be held in Dorchester.  The link below is for this notification and sets out details of the meeting and how to registrer in advance to speak at the meeting.

Click to access vearse-farm-planning-application.pdf

The notification refers to only 3 people being allowed to speak against the application. We challenged this with Dorset Counci and they have promised that there will be no limit applied.

This is the last opportunity for us to raise concerns about this massive housing development and the impact on Bridport. Our representations to this and previous applications have set out these concerns in detail and we know they are shared by many local people.  

Outline Planning permission was granted in 2017 and this means there is no realistic chance of this application being completely rejected by the planning committee. But there is scope with persuasion and effort to convince the planning committee to refuse the application as it stands and require major improvements or assurances which are in the best interest of Bridport and the local people. 

If they approve this application on 4 August then there is no chance of getting any of these improvements made. For example delivering the promised employment land as the houses are being built, improving the Bridport infrastructure to cope with the impact of 760 new houses/2000+ new residents (eg medical facilities, road/paths, parking, electric grid etc), tackling climate change issues (eg providing independent assurance on the resulting increase in flood risk, better use of renewable energy etc). 

Please do your best to attend the meeting and register to speak so you can make your views known directly to the planning committee members. We cannot rely on the Dorset council planning officer to properly represent local views. We know these will be presented in a very brief and dismissive way and buried deep in a written report amongst all the other papers provided to the committee.  

Please ask anyone else you know who is interested in looking after the best interests of Bridport to also attend and speak up! 

 Thanks