Four Frome councillors have failed in an attempt to get the controversial Saxonvale development decision to be reexamined.

A scrutiny session last week decided against referring it to Somerset Council’s Executive to reconsider the decision to sell Saxonvale to Newcore Investment Solutions V1.

Green Party councillor Shane Collins said it was “very disappointing news”.

Councillor Collins (Frome East) has claimed that planned redevelopment of the site will deliver 153 “expensive” homes and “none of the regeneration we want”.

Somerset Council’s executive committee voted on September 23 to sell the brownfield site in Frome town centre to Newcore Capital, despite potentially having to repay £3.6m of funding previously provided by Homes England.

The decision was formally ‘called in’ by Councillor Collins and three fellow councillors, with the council’s corporate and strategic scrutiny committee debating the matter.

Councillor Collins claimed that Newcore intended to deliver far fewer homes than the Homes England funding would have enabled, and that these homes would not meet the needs of local people.

Newcore is expected to bring forward its own proposals for the site in the coming months, with a series of public events being planned before a formal planning application is submitted.

The Mendip Local Plan Part II, which was approved in December 2021 (and later revised in September 2025) specified that the site could deliver a minimum of 250 new homes (of which 30 per cent would be affordable) along with 6,000 sq m of office space.

Homes England provided £3,935,000 to Mendip District Council in February 2020 to decontaminate the site, removing asbestos, disconnecting former utilities and eliminating vegetation.

The grant was also intended to provide additional affordable housing within the site (bringing the intended level up to 25 per cent), reducing the financial pressures on any developer who ended up building on the land.

Mr Collins addressed the committee in Taunton last Wednesday (October 14), claiming that Newcore’s proposals would fall far short of the aspirations of both Homes England and the Local Plan.

He said: “The importance of the Homes England grant was that it gave us a minimum of 249 houses, of which 25 per cent would be affordable.

“As it stands at the moment, with Newcore being the selected bidder, we aren’t going to get any of that.

“We’re going to get 153 houses, which will be probably a lot more expensive and unaffordable for people in Frome, and we won’t have the regeneration that we all want.

“It’s likely that Newcore will get planning permission eventually, probably through the secretary of stage, and sell it on to a housing developer.

“Saxonvale is an exceptionally important site. This will determine the town centre for decades to come and we want confidence in the robustness of the decision-making.”

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Councillor Mike Rigby, portfolio holder for economic development, planning and assets, gave assurances that the decision had been taken in a transparent and legitimate manner, with councillors being in full possession of the facts.