It is clear that more land will need to be allocated, and developed, in South Gloucestershire to meet not only its own housing needs but a proportion of need that cannot be met in Bristol City. This was a binding requirement of South Gloucestershire's Local Plan which set out that this issue needed to be reviewed and addressed by 2018 at the latest - this unfortunately never happened. The lack of a plan-led solution has fuelled the housing crisis in this area further.
The previous strategy proposed by the Council (which ultimately, was considered inappropriate by the Government) was a peripheral approach to development, locating large sites a long way from Bristol - these are shown above and included areas such as Thornbury, Coalpit Heath, Buckover, Charfield and Yate.
Whilst some housing will be needed in these locations, we consider that larger-scale development should be located directly on the edge of Bristol - where there is a real opportunity for those to walk, cycle or use a bus service to access facilities and work, such as in Aztec West or Woodlands Business Park. This is compared to these other options shown above, where realistically, the majority of residents would be forced to simply drive, putting additional pressure on the motorway junctions.
The main issue with the peripheral approach is its impact on the environment. We previously undertook an analysis of this as part of the JSP and found that if you compared WGC to the proposed Buckover site adjacent to Thornbury, that site would generate nearly 2.5 tonnes more CO2 gas emissions every day. This is because its location would make increased vehicle movements unavoidable.
WGC is the therefore the best option to meet this requirement, in a location where need is greatest and environmental impacts can be minimised.
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