BREAKING: Brixham green fields eyed for major housing and hotel scheme

Developers are preparing proposals for a hotel, a care home and 175 houses in fields on the outskirts of Brixham.

Torbay Council has been asked to give its ‘scoping opinion’ on the request from Somerset-based Collier Planning to build in fields at Monksbridge.

Their development proposal shows the homes, the care home and a 105-bed hotel in an area beside the skate park, next to the main Monksbridge junction. The site would be accessed from Mathill Road.

No planning application has been lodged as yet, and a ‘scoping opinion’ means the council is being asked what environmental information it would need to provide on key issues like traffic, ecology or pollution.

It is part of the process of making sure a planning application, if and when it comes, meets the council’s requirements.

Because the site is officially classified as ‘sensitive’, there will need to be a full environmental study. It lies within the South Devon National Landscape (SDNL) designated area and some of its trees are protected.

In the application’s paperwork online the SDNL organisation says: “given the location of the development and its scale, and views into the site from near and far, the proposals are considered to result in significant adverse effects.”

The site, it says, is home to rare greater horseshoe bats and cirl buntings.

Opposition to the proposal is already mounting online, even though no planning application has yet been submitted.

One comment on social media said: “Hopefully it will not go forward, This is one of the last bits of green space left in Brixham and is home to much wildlife, while Mathill Road is extremely busy already.”