Developer’s plans for 75 new home in Derbyshire village - despite concerns about nearby historic landfill sites

Avant Homes has submitted plans to Amber Valley Borough Council for 75 houses off Birchwood Lane in Somercotes.

The site is currently an equestrian centre and is bordered by what is set to be an already approved housing development, also from Avant Homes, for 200 houses at Nether Farm. A decision will be made by the borough council in the next few months.

This comes nine months after the borough council disclosed that it had listed the current equestrian centre site off Birchwood Lane as a potential site for inclusion in its Local Plan – a blueprint for future development up to 2039. Current plans are for the overall Local Plan to be adopted this December.

The Birchwood Lane site is yet to be approved as an earmarked site for housing development in the Local Plan, but now a developer has already submitted plans for the plot. Plans submitted on behalf of Avant Homes detail that 30 per cent of the scheme (22 houses) would be affordable housing.

This project is the latest in a batch of plans over the past few years for housing development on fields to the west of Somercotes – now totalling 804 houses between the combined sites.

All of the recent planning applications for homes in the area have been hampered by the area’s close proximity to two historic landfills and the hazardous substances connected with them, which are said to be spreading into the wider area.

This has been widely documented by ground investigation reports commissioned by housing developers and published as part of their applications.

An investigation from Ivy House into the neighbouring Nether Farm site details that homes would need to be built on suspended floors and have membranes installed in their ground floors to prevent harm from hazardous gases linked to the historic landfills.

This particularly relates to former landfill LS01, to the south east, which was approved for toxic waste disposal but was also used for completely undocumented waste disposal for decades before it was officially licensed.