Plans for a huge housing development on the site of a former industrial works in Plymouth have been approved.
Plymouth City Council’s planning committee unanimously backed an application from Homes England to build 550 homes, shops, a cafe, and a “community hub”, with a nursery, on the site of the former China Clay Dryer Works at Coypool.
The scheme envisages 490 dwellings and another 60 for “older persons” set in open space and woodland, which will have public access.
The development, which will be called Coypool Park, would be surrounded by almost 40 acres of woodland on the former industrial site in the Plym Valley, around five kilometres (three miles) north-east of the city centre.
The 30-hectare “brownfield” site of the former Imerys drying works is sandwiched between the suburb of Woodford to the east and the Plym Valley Railway line to the west.
The site is alongside Woodford Avenue and Coypool Road, which leads to Plymouth Road. The Coypool park-and-ride site is to the south and Marsh Mills Retail Park is on the other side of the railway line. The application received outline consent and detailed designs for the layout will be covered by later applications.
China clay producer Imerys closed the vast site, which had an industrial legacy stretching back a century, in 2008 and 10 years later it was bought by the Government’s housing delivery agency Homes England from landowners Imerys and MML to prepare it for redevelopment.
Paul Britton, senior development manager for Homes England in the South West, said work had already been carried out to prepare the site for development.
He told the committee that 30,000sq m of former industrial buildings had been knocked down and said: “This represented one of the largest demolition projects in the South West last year.”
He stressed the woodlands, and open and play areas, will be handed to the city council for public access, describing the overall concept as “a high quality scheme”.
The site, however, only has one main access into it, although there is another for emergency vehicles and cyclists, and some councillors sitting on the committee raised questions about the impact on traffic.
Labour’s Cllr Margaret Corvid asked why there was only one main access to the site, while the Tories' Cllr Bill Wakeham said that while it would be a wonderful place to live, he was concerned about the implications on traffic. Councillors heard these matters were being considered and would be covered when more detailed plans were forthcoming.
