Churcham Parish Council Alert!

On October 8th, the Cabinet of the Forest of Dean District Council approved a new settlement as the preferred option for the housing plan for the district. This preferred option is to site 4000 houses between the A40 and A48 in the parish of Churcham. The extent of this development if approved will cover an area of 470 acres. The parish council have not been consulted on the strategy and are against a development of this size in the parish. indeed it will change our rural community into a urban one.

Also the traffic this development will generate will be disabling for the parish and cause major problems on our road network. We have no details or been consulted over this, we don’t know where it is being sited or what landowners are being affected.

Forest of Dean have a further meeting on the 15th October 2020 to put forward the strategy to the planning committee, if approved there will be an 8 week consultation period where the parish council and parish can then express our views. It seems perverse that a strategy to site a development of this size in our community is being taken and us the residents only have a chance to comment after the strategy is decided!!!

John Francis – Chairman, Churcham Parish Council