CHARD residents will not find out until the autumn whether more than 400 new homes will be built on the town's southern border.

The Chard Eastern Development Area (CEDA) lies between the A358 Tatworth Road and the A30 Crewkerne Road, and is earmarked for at least 2,700 new homes, along with 17 hectares of employment land and two new primary schools.

Two major applications for the southern end of the CEDA have been submitted to South Somerset District Council, and could deliver nearly 400 homes between them.

But the council has stated that the earliest these plans will be discussed will be September – and that any final decisions on them will be taken in public.

The council granted permission to the Kier Group in February to build 200 homes between the A358 and B3162 Forton Road, with construction expected to start later in the year.

This site forms part of the CEDA, but does not include any part of the proposed spine road which the council has envisaged – a road which will connect the A30 and A358 and relieve congestion on the town centre crossroads where the two roads currently meet.

Persimmon Homes South West put forward plans for 315 homes on a site to the east of the Kier site – plans which were refused by the council’s area west committee (which deals with major planning applications for Chard, Crewkerne and Ilminster) in June 2018.

After the council’s regulation committee urged the developer to think again, revised plans are now expected to come forward in the coming months for both the homes and that section of the spine road – which would include a new roundabout on the A358.

Now, in the most recent turn of events, Taunton-based developers Summerfield Homes has put forward plans for 94 new homes between the Kier and Persimmon sites.

The site will include 234 car parking spaces and 94 cycle spaces, with vehicular access being provided from Tatworth Road and a new pedestrian link to the Holbear residential area leading off Forton Road.

The majority of the homes on the site will be three- or four-bedroom properties.

A spokesperson for Summerfield Homes said: “The proposed development aims to be in context with the surrounding developments while ensuring it reflects the vernacular character of Chard.

“The development will benefit from the provision of an open space area along the eastern boundary to provide an attenuation basin, as well as create an appropriate link to the neighbouring development [the Persimmon site].”

The council has said that it does not expect to take any final decision on either the Persimmon or the Summerfield plans until September at the earliest.

A spokesman said: “An application has been submitted by Summerfield Homes for plans to build 94 homes, which is separate from the Persimmon and Kier sites that would border this application.

“This site, along with the Persimmon site, will be looked at on its own merits and in the context of the council wanting to see sites come forward with the appropriate infrastructure support.

“It is expected that the Persimmon site will be the first of the applications to come back to the area west committee between September and December 2019.”

The council said the number of dwellings in the Persimmon site was “likely to be reduced” from the 315 originally proposed – but could not confirm how much it would be reduced by until revised plans had been formally submitted by the developer.

The council’s area west committee meets on the third Wednesday of each month in Chard, with its September meeting scheduled to take place on September 18.