'Use your loaf' Residents oppose plans to build housing on farmland

A VILLAGE is urging North Somerset Council to “use your loaf” and not build over its grade one farmland.

- John WIMPERIS

Backwell is a village of about 2,000 homes and developers already have planning permission to build another 800 - a scale of building locals have dubbed “absolutely bananas.” Now North Somerset Council's new local plan could allocate huge swathes of farmland east of the village for almost a thousand more houses.

The local plan - which is out for consultation until Friday - needs to allocate enough land for new housing to show it can hit its 15-year housing target. But about 60 Backwellians braved the elements and carried loaves of bread at a protest on Saturday against allocating the land to the east of Backwell for around 889 homes, warning the council was ignoring food security.

Backwell local Lorraine Hopkinson said: “We were calling for North Somerset Council and government to ‘use your loaf’ and consider food security before continuing to put forward our precious grade 1 agricultural greenbelt land which is currently used for food.