A planning application for part of the Goodmores Farm development on the edge of Exmouth goes before district councillors on Wednesday, December 15.

The site, off Hulham Road and Dinan Way, has outline planning permission for up to 350 new homes, granted back in 2018.

The planning committee will be considering an application relating to 50 per cent of the site, where 191 of the housing units will be built.

It is a ‘reserved matters application’ relating to the layout, scale, appearance and landscaping of this part of the site - details that were not agreed at the outline planning permission stage.

The design has been altered to simplify the internal road layout and incorporate fewer hard standing areas, to reduce the amount of surface run-off water from the site.

Because of the change in layout, the total number of homes to be built across the site as a whole has been reduced to 298, five per cent of which will be affordable. No affordable homes are included in the 191 to be built in the section under consideration.

Councillors are being recommended to approve the amended scheme. The summary going before the committee says: “The revised layout of the site provides a coherent development that is respectful of its surroundings and the constraints on the site such as trees and hedgerows and the residential properties that lie close to the site.”

But Exmouth Town Council, who have been consulted on the application, are objecting to the plans in their current format. In their response, they raise concerns about the site ‘being developed in two halves by two different developers’ and whether this will affect various aspects of the development that had previously been agreed upon for the site as a whole. The overall scheme includes 2.3 hectares of mixed-use employment land, 1.3 hectares of land for a primary school, a football pitch and a locally equipped area for play.

Cllr Paul Millar, who represents the Halsdon ward, is strongly against the entire development, which he describes as an ‘intellectually incoherent and madcap scheme’. He is objecting to the partial application under discussion this week for the same reasons as Exmouth Town Council.