Key design features

The development comes with environmental and ecological enhancements, delivering biodiversity net gain through wildflower planting, bird and bat boxes, and additional planting on Herne Hill. Trees and hedges will be retained wherever possible and bat/animal corridors and boxes from part of the agreed principles for the site.

Persimmon will be honouring their Homes for Nature commitment, providing bird/bat boxes and bee bricks on each home alongside hedgehog highways and nature friendly SUDs features led by ecological and design guidance.

The sustainable drainage system will have significantly beneficial features, featuring basins along the north boundary of the site that not only supports the development but ameliorates the existing flooding issues on the existing development off Canal Way.

The homes themselves will be zero-carbon ready, equipped with electric vehicle charging points, and powered by solar panels and air source heat pumps.

Residents of the development and those nearby will benefit from improvements to National Cycle Route 33 linking to Chard secured by the S106 Agreement and green infrastructure walking trail with routes into the existing Herne Hill valley to the south. The walking trail will create access to the north of the site to the surrounding development and local bus service.

The properties will be complemented by features that create a sense of place and community such as an enhanced multi use games area, neighbouring area of equipped play, local areas of equipped play, exercise station, and natural play areas and community allotments.

This development will create jobs, generate council tax revenue, and help make a dent in the housing waiting list in South Somerset. In 2023, there were nearly 12,000 applicants on the Homefinder Somerset Scheme. Our whole development will reserve at least 35% of all homes for a Housing Association partner including a mix of tenures. The first reserved matters phase will provide 33 homes out of the 97 proposed.  This will help alleviate pressure on the Council, give local people the housing they need, and prevent homelessness.

We’re proud of our record in supporting local first-time buyers, families and young people to buy their own home. Our average selling price is more than 20% below the UK national average, while approximately half of our private sales have been to first-time buyers over the last two years. The proposed scheme’s housing mix will vary in size, style, type and tenure. All homes meet both national accessibility and space standards.

Data from Persimmon’s sites also shows that a significant majority of our customers of our customers are local to the areas in which we build, demonstrating that local people are the main beneficiaries of new homes, with new infrastructure and financial contributions helping the wider community.

Our developments help alleviate the housing pressure in the areas in which we build, so serve people in the locality. Those from outside the area who purchase one of our homes have the potential to bring benefits to the area in the form of new professional skills, experiences and perspectives. Alternatively, they establish a thriving business, providing new goods and services for local consumption as well as employment opportunities.

As part of Persimmon’s commitment to leaving a positive lasting legacy in the areas in which we develop, we will reserve a proportion of the development for a local housing association to help address housing need in the area. This development will help alleviate this issue, lowering costs for local authority and ensuring more people can live in a stable home. The proportion of the development allocated for such use will be 35%, in accordance with local planning policy requirements, with a mixture of tenures to be confirmed.

Financial contributions will be made to the local community and secured via the s106, demonstrating Persimmon’s commitment to having positive impacts on the places we develop. These contributions will support the construction of improved local playing pitches and changing facilities, improvements to local education facilities and improvements to the National Cycle Route in the vicinity of the site.

We continue to engage with Somerset Council, local community leaders and elected councillors. In addition to publicising this website, we will be sending out flyers within the local area once the reserved matters planning application has been submitted, giving directions to the Somerset Council Planning website for the community to review plans and comment on the application. This provides an opportunity for valuable feedback that can help us fine tune our proposals.