Simon Digby Site, Chelmsley Wood, Solihull 

Welcome to this Public Consultation website, for the proposed development of 177 new affordable homes, open space, landscaping and associated infrastructure, at the Simon Digby Site, Chelmsley Wood, Solihull.

The purpose of this consultation is to gather feedback on the design and layout of the proposed development from the local community.

Background

The Simon Digby site covers 8.53 ha of land located to the northeast of Chelmsley Wood Town Centre, Solihull. It was previously part of the Simon Digby school, which closed several decades ago and is currently grassland. The site is allocated in Solihull Local Plan (adopted 2013) for up to 200 dwellings.

Vistry Group and Solihull Council now wish to bring forward the development and welcome your views before making the application. All comments will be carefully considered during the design development and once the consultation period closes, we will present our findings from the community consultation in a Statement of Community Involvement which will then be submitted with the planning application.

The proposed development

The proposed development will consist of:

• 177 Affordable homes for local people in and around Chelmsley Wood including 80 family sized 3- and 4-bedroom homes.
• New Park provision.
• Retention of 2 veteran trees.
• New landscaping provision to provide up to circa 100 trees.
• Ecological improvements.
• Sustainable measures - ASHP, EV charging, SuDS, Solar PV panels, fabric first approach, timber frame.
• Upgrades to the Cole Valley Nature Reserve, public open space, habitat creation and new play to improve overlooking and natural surveillance to help prevent anti-social behaviour.

The main access to the site will be through Chester Road (located at the south end of the site), with walking and cycling links to Kitegreen Close. New homes will be built to fabric first approach and include solar panels and air source heat pumps. To support local biodiversity, various measures will be taken, including retention of veteran trees, new planting, swales and bird and bat bricks / boxes.

Vistry Group will be offering an excellent range of property types with a variety of facing materials as well as significant areas of new landscaping, which will ensure that the new development has a high-quality finish, complimenting the character of the area.

Please refer to the consultation board PDF on this page, which will provide further information on the proposals.

How to get involved

If you would like to provide your views and comments on the scheme, please complete and submit the consultation response form. All feedback is anonymous, and we do not request your details as part of this process. Please note you will have a further opportunity to make comments on the application once it is submitted to the council.

Please select the appropriate answer that best represents your views. Once completed, we will review all comments and include them in a Statement of Community Involvement which will then be submitted with the application. All comments will be taken into consideration and the feedback we receive may result in changes being made to the proposed scheme.

If you would like to get in touch with any specific questions, please feel free to contact us on consultations@rcaregeneration.co.uk or on 01905 887686.

Please submit your response by 10^th of November 2024.

Thank you for your time.