A councillor says she was given “no warning” of council plans to expand the village she represents by around half.

Bath and North East Somerset Council is set to allocate Clutton as an area for 330 homes to be built, under its new local plan.

Sam Ross (Green), who represents the village on the council, said: “330 new homes would increase Clutton’s housing stock by around 50%, which is a huge shift for one village.”

The local plan is a major document setting out the council’s planning policies and allocating land for where housing developments should be built for the next 18 years. Allocating a site for development in the local plan does not mean there are current plans to build there, but any planning applications in line with it are almost certain to be approved.

Another 200 homes are proposed in neighbouring Farmborough, which is also in Ms Ross’ ward. She said that the council had previously only considered allocating space for 55–83 homes in the villages, and that she only found out about the number planned when the draft plan was published last week.

She said: “I’ve formally raised this with senior planning officers and the cabinet member responsible, both on the scale of the increase and the lack of any warning to residents or their ward councillor. Over the next three weeks I’ll be raising it directly at cabinet, full council and scrutiny committee, and I’ll be submitting my own objection during the consultation. I’d urge residents to do the same.

“Scale is only part of the problem. Developer contributions towards things like GP capacity, secondary places and road improvements really only kick in on big urban schemes, not the smaller, piecemeal development villages get, so we end up with the houses but not the infrastructure.”

She added: “Most people commute to Bristol or Bath, so you end up with a dormitory: somewhere people sleep, not somewhere they actually live their lives. Having lived in cities, towns and suburbs before spending the last 25 years in a village, I’ve seen the damage this does to rural communities.”

The government doubled Bath and North East Somerset’s housing target in 2024 and told it to find space to build 27,324 homes over the timespan of the plan. The council is proposing building most of those homes around Keynsham and the Somer Valley as it says that building suburbs around the city of Bath would threaten its World Heritage Site status. 

Council leader Kevin Guy (Bathavon North, Liberal Democrat) said: “We had no choice over that figure and we remain concerned that the unique characteristics of our area, including our World Heritage status and the extent of our green belt, have not been taken into account in the way we would have hoped.”

The latest draft of the plan went before the council cabinet last week, and there is now a six-week consultation process.

Once approved, the plan will establish planning application rules until 2043.