Plans to build 46 new homes on Green Belt land next to the M25 in South Bucks have been submitted to Buckinghamshire Council for approval.

The mix of one and two-bedroom apartments and three and four-bedroom houses has been proposed on a 1.5-hectare area of scrubland off Pinstone Way in Tatling End, Denham.

Blocks of flats in the new residential development, which will be just metres from the M25 in parts, may be up to three storeys tall to help ‘screen’ road noise coming from London’s orbital motorway, according to the application.

The outline proposals include 97 car parking spaces, working out at a ratio of 2.1 bays per home, while there would also be storage for 80 bicycles.

The applicant behind the plans is New Ach Ltd, a company run by members of the O’Malley family, who also have a haulage firm based in Watford.

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Their application says that 50 per cent of the new homes would be affordable and would contribute to the council’s ‘critical housing land supply shortfall’.

The triangular parcel of agricultural land where the homes are proposed is mainly flat and borders the rear gardens of existing housing fronting Oxford Road to the north, as well as Wickford Farm, a residential caravan park with some commercial businesses to the south.

Gerrards Cross town centre is approximately 2.5km to the north-west and there are existing transport links from near the site into the town.

The application says the plans would ‘redevelop poor quality Green Belt land’ and also provide 0.2 hectares of public open space ‘on an otherwise private and inaccessible site’.

Plans read: “The development proposals would deliver significant benefits, as detailed below. These benefits amount to very special circumstances which clearly outweigh the harm identified to the Green Belt.

“This includes contributing to the council’s s critical housing land supply shortfall.”

The application promises a ‘net gain’ in biodiversity on the new development, although the plans would likely require the removal of 20 trees.

However, design documents add: “The retained open space at the east of the site will allow reinforcement of the existing hedgerow.”

The application also argues that the proposed development would lead to ‘limited and localised harm to the openness of the Green Belt’ and would amount to the ‘very special circumstances’ that permit building in the Green Belt.

It reads: “The site’s contribution to the purposes of Green Belt land is also limited. No further harm has been identified as a result of the proposals where the application is considered to be in compliance with the development plan.

“The benefits of the proposals, most notably the delivery of market, affordable and self-build / custom housing, are significant and would clearly outweigh the Green Belt harm, and no other harm has been identified, such that the benefits constitute ‘very special circumstances’.”

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