Disused Yeovil school to be converted into housing

A disused Victorian school in Yeovil is set to be converted into housing.

South Somerset District Council has approved plans to build 45 homes on the site of the Park School off the A37 Kingston.

The fee-paying school opened in 1851 but moved to a new site in 2018 and the former building closed its doors for good in 2020 due to financial problems.

The plans will see the Grade II-listed building converted into 15 homes, with a further 30 built in the grounds.

The developer, housing association Stonewater, said 31 of the new homes, or 69%, will be affordable - above the council's target of 35%.

Local resident Jane Burrell criticised the plan at a meeting of the council's area south committee on Wednesday, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

"We refute the county council's assessment that this proposed development will not increase traffic, compared to that produced when this site operated as a school," she said.

"We question how a fire engine will access these properties. It is already extremely difficult to exit the site."

David Parsons, chairman of the Friends of Sydney Gardens, said the plans had been brought forward "with unseemly haste".

Mr Parsons described it as a "massive over-development," adding: "The proposed road access on and off Kingston in ludicrous. It is impracticable and, indeed, highly dangerous."

Councillor John Clark, who represents Yeovil Summerlands ward, said the council needed to have "very clear grounds" for rejecting an application for sustainable development.

"I am sure in my own mind that if we did turn this down, that would get overturned on those grounds by the Planning Inspectorate," he said.

The committee voted to approve the plans by a margin of nine votes to two.

Elsewhere, the committee also voted to approve 185 homes on Tintinhull Road at the northern edge of the town, near the Brimsmore garden centre.

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