A SPECIAL meeting is to be held in Thornbury to discuss proposals for 500 new homes in the town.

Thornbury Town Council has called the meeting for members to decide whether or not to support Barratt Homes’ application.

Last month the housing developer submitted an outline planning application to South Gloucestershire Council for 500 homes at Park Farm, off Butt Lane.

Such is the scale of the proposed development town councillors have decided to hold a special half hour meeting next week to discuss the application, and what their response should be. The meeting will be open to the public.

Judith Payne, clerk to the council, said: "It is such a big application members decided to have a special meeting."

In its application Barratts has said the 26-hectare site would also include allotments, a community orchard and playing fields, as well as protecting the nearby medieval fishponds.

The outline planning application has already received more than 35 comments from local residents on the South Gloucestershire Council website.

The majority of the comments have been objections with people raising concerns about sustainability, suitability of the site, flood risk, increases in traffic on Butt Lane, and noise and light pollution.

Thornbury and District Heritage Trust also claim the Park Farm development would destroy important historic landscape heritage because the site sits within the 750-acre medieval deer park known as Thornbury Park.

Objections have be raised by campaign group Save Thornbury’s Green Heritage that the Barratt application is premature. The Park Farm site is identified in South Gloucestershire Council’s Core Strategy as the preferred location in the town for development.

However, the strategy is yet to be formally adopted by the authority because an independent planning inspector is yet to decide on the document’s soundness.

To view the Barratts Home application in full visit www.southglos.gov.uk Members of the public have until Friday, July 8 to comment on the application.

The Thornbury Town Council special meeting will be held at Thornbury Town Hall next Tuesday, July 12 (7pm).