A PUBLIC consultation has started on plans to build up to 350 new homes on land in Tonedale, Wellington - but only for three weeks.

West of England Developments (WoED) has permission to build 200 homes plus employment units behind the town’s Lidl supermarket to the south of the Paddington to Penzance railway line.

Now, it has put forward plans to develop fields over which it has development rights north of the railway with access from Wardleworth Way.

An online consultation, which can be found here, is taking place ahead of the company submitting a formal outline planning application before Christmas.

Town planning consultancy CarneySweeney is running the consultation, which describes the proposed development, its background and planning policy context, and provides a series of plans and an opportunity for people to make comments and feedback their views on the emerging proposals.

It wants comments emailed to [email protected] by midnight on December 20 or posted to its Southernhay West, Exeter, offices.

The new Tonedale development would also deliver a pedestrian and cycle access to the north side of Wellington’s proposed £15 million train station, if it was ever built.

It is also proposed to include two football pitches with changing rooms, other public open space, drainage attenuation, allotments, and footpaths linked to a ‘hierarchy of connections and green spaces’.

The railway station would principally be accessed by a spine road through the southern WoED development, although the company has since sold on the site to a new developer with no guarantee that it will deliver all that had been expected.

A CarneySweeney spokesperson said: “The proposed development at Wardleworth Way would provide a pedestrian and cycle access connection to the northern platform.

“This provides residents north of the railway line the ability to access the new train station without having to drive or travel a greater distance through the town centre, out along Taunton Road, to access the train station via the Longforth Park development access.”

A separate planning application will need to be made by Network Rail for the station build.

The station, the funding for which has currently been axed by the new Labour Government, would include a footbridge for pedestrians and cyclists to reach the north platform.

The spokesperson said the Tonedale housing plans complied with the officially accepted ‘preferred approach to the future growth of the town’ set out in a Wellington Place Plan commissioned by the former Somerset West and Taunton Council.

They said: “The Wellington Place Plan advocates a station-led growth strategy for the town, specifically identifying this site for residential development.

“The Wellington Place Plan has been adopted as a material consideration in determining planning applications and considering conservation and regeneration.”

The proposed development would ‘formalise’ a pedestrian and cycle route over an existing railway bridge next to Longforth Farmhouse to connect with Proctor Way, Lillebonne Way, Howard Road, and the wider town.

Somerset Council will also ask for public comments to be sent direct to the authority once the planning application has been received.