PLANS to save a green space in Frome are taking steps forward.
Mendip District Council's cabinet voted on November 2 to transfer four parcels of land to Aster Housing to deliver new social rent and shared ownership homes, subject to planning permission.
Councillor Liz Leyshon, portfolio holder for corporate services and projects, said the new homes would provide safe accommodation at below-market rents for local families.
Speaking in early-November, she said: “Demand for social rent is up five percent in the past five months.
“That’s expected to rise dramatically as the effects of the Covid pandemic are prolonged, and government interventions and economic assistance fall away.
“It’s essential that we step forward to meet demand. Everyone has the right to a home.”
This included Easthill Field in Frome, until the site decision was "paused" in November 2020.
This was because councillors and members of the public raised concerns about destroying this “precious green space”.
READ MORE: Council pauses social housing plans for Easthill in Frome
Friends of Easthill Field - a group dedicated to saving the field - have nominated the land to be declared an Asset of Community Value.
Friends of Easthill Field’s Simon Bishop said the space is "treasured" by the community.
“We are applying for the land to be an Asset of Community Value because Easthill Field is used and treasured by the community, many of whom have written movingly about their memories of the field and what it means to them,” he said.
“It is an open green space that is currently, and has been historically, used to benefit the social, mental and physical wellbeing of the local people.
"Recent events where trainee gravediggers destroyed part of this priority habitat has reinforced our belief that the field will only be safe in the hands of the community.”
READ MORE: Trainee grave diggers practice at Easthill Field in Frome
The bid is set to be considered at a special meeting of the Asset of Community Value Panel tonight (February 24).
Friends of Easthill Field also set up a petition on February 18 to urge MDC to remove the field from the housing development plan.
The petition asks MDC to commission a full environmental impact assessment and transfer the land to Frome Town Council to safeguard it for the community.
The petition gained more than 700 signatures in just five days.
Helen Deeming, from Friends of Easthill Field, added: “We are grateful to MDC for the pause in their current plans to develop Easthill Field as housing but we need to turn the pause into a full stop.
"We are facing a global climate and ecological crisis with catastrophic loss of biodiversity.
“Easthill is unique, it has never been cultivated or fertilised and represents an optimal example of naturally sequestered carbon in a patchwork of interdependent habitats supporting a wide array of wildlife.
"MDC declared a climate emergency is 2019. In their own Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy they have signed up to increase local biodiversity and increase potential for carbon sequestration.
"Their current development plans run counter to these commitments.”
To sign the petition visit change.org/Save-EASTHILL-Field-NOW
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