Somerset - 5 unit residential scheme

Key Skills: Outline Planning Permission

Pre-application advice

Bat Consultation Area

5 year housing supply

Category: Planning Permission

LPA: Somerset Council

The Project

We were instructed to submit a pre-application advice submission to Somerset Council for a site that was only partly inside the housing development boundary. The site has a number of constraints being adjacent to a historic woodland priority habitat, within a bat consultation area and containing a number of large trees. However, having successfully demonstrated that the site was in a sustainable location and, due to Somerset’s lack of 5 year housing supply, it met the requirements of Paragraph 11 of the NPPF, we have received positive pre-application advice.

An application for outline planning permission was submitted in November 2025 accompanied by an Ecological Report, Bat and Badger Surveys, Tree Surveys, BNG reports plus a full suite of plans and a comprehensive Planning Statement pulling everything together. We are now awaiting a decision which will hopefully be issued in early 2026.