As residents of Alford, one of the smaller untouched rural settlements in South Somerset, we fully support the added protection from development being afforded to villages like ours by the Preferred Options document. Villages like ours are the 'Jewels in the Crown' of the Somerset countryside and so many have already been spoiled by speculative inappropriate development. The introduction of a Village tier lying between the Rural Centres and Rural Centres makes absolute sense as does the increa

We wish to comment on the new village tier proposal. We have lived in a small South Somerset village for three generations. During that time, and particularly in recent years, we have sadly seen a small number of landowners looking to take advantage of the current lack of a district wide 5 year housing land supply. This is regrettable, because If every open space in the village is to be filled in with housing estates, then we might as well be living in a suburb. We are grateful to the Council a

Sections 5.19, 5.20 and 5.21 state; 'New housing has been delivered in the Rural Settlements far in excess of what the Local Plan anticipated - 5.19', 'Villages are settlements which are considered to be sustainable locations for small scale development - 5.20' and 'The villages do not have identified development areas but growth is expected to take place adjacent to the existing settlement - 5.21'. Whereas 5.21 completely wipes out section 5.20 and makes no sense in relation to the two precedin

There now seems very little difference between a village and a rural centre. In fact, some villages have seen a rate of growth which is taken them to a size which matches that of a rural centre. Developers will always find rural centres/villages/rural settlements/hamlets/countryside as more attractive places to build as higher/premium property prices make these sites more attractive to developers. The problem is the rural road networks which are not designed for larger vehicles and vehicle num

It would be preferable if the status of all Rural Settlements remain as in the current adopted Local Plan. However, if for the purpose of Housing Development there has to be change by the introduction of a new category of Villages this category needs to have certain safeguards to avoid over development in individual Villages. In the new Plan Policy SS1 12 Villages are nominated for housing development. Policy SS2 requires that 1314 homes have to be built in the 20 year period of the plan with a

I am broadly supportive of the changes to the Local Plan. I'm glad that SSDC has identified that too many houses have been built in Rural Settlements (21% of the housing development share is too high for small villages around South Somerset). The only criticism I have is that, despite scouring the enormous amount of literature, there is very little action on reducing our carbon footprint as a district. Could the Council be more bold and legislate that developers must build solar panels into the

I do not agree with the plans to erect houses on five large sites. The possible 200-300 additional houses will destroy the character of Templecombe. The damage would be irreversible. Planning was granted a few years ago for development at Slades Hill These sites could provide 70 dwellings. Although access is not perfect , it is by far the better of all the other sites. Planning permission is also granted for the old nursing home, why when there is a need for assisted living for the elderly a