Setback for housing scheme after land swap is turned down

A DEVELOPMENT of affordable homes has taken a knock after a minister decided the common land they are planned for cannot be exchanged with land just over a mile away.

- RICHARD YOULE

Many people are celebrating, having fought to protect a landscape in West Cross, Swansea, they hold dear.

The development site comprises land that is part of Fairwood and Clyne Common - although it is known locally as West Cross Common - and the 56 homes have been given planning permission by Swansea council.

But because it is common land, so-called exchange land has to be identified and registered under the 2006 Commons Act. Applicant the Somerset Trust identified replacement land near Northway, Bishopston, for this purpose and applied to the Welsh Government to effectively swap it with the housing land.

The trust argued there would be nature conservation benefits at both sites and that a 100% affordable housing scheme in a location which "desperately needs" it should be given considerable weight.