The next phase of a major new development in Taunton can go ahead following a unanimous vote by district councillors.

Taylor Wimpey and the Vistry Group are currently constructing the Orchard Grove development, which will eventually deliver 2,000 new homes, employment units, a new primary school and a ‘park and bus’ facility between the A38 Wellington Road and Honiton Road.

Vistry, together with its partners Westco and LiveWest, put forward detailed plans for 55 new homes within the site, located between a new ‘pocket park’ and the existing houses on Jeffreys’ Way.

Somerset West and Taunton Council’s planning committee has now given its backing to these proposals, despite concerns about the developers’ working practices and fears around contaminated land on a nearby industrial site.

The new homes will be accessed from the main spine road (Egremont Road) via Bushy Grove, enabling easy access to the A38 between Taunton and Wellington.

The properties will range from one to four bedrooms in size, with 17 of the 55 homes planned for this phase being affordable.

The plans originally included the redevelopment of an existing industrial estate on Comeytrowe Lane; however, this will now be handled by a separate application at a later date.

Local resident Tony Smith said the council should badger the developers to carry out decontamination work on this site as soon as possible to prevent any future delays or costs to the taxpayer.

He told the planning committee on September 16: “The contamination with the industrial estate was known and reported on when outline permission was granted, on the understanding that re-mediation would be undertaken by the developers over the course of the project.

“They have repeatedly kicked this can down the road. Unless you obtain an explicit commitment from the developers today that they will produce and get approval for a re-mediation plan, to be implemented at their expense, the council will become liable for future re-mediation [for the wider site].”

Councillor Mark Lithgow expressed reluctant support for the plans while criticising the developers for “bad practices” during the earlier phases of the construction.

He said: “I don’t think we’ve got any grounds on which we can refuse this.

“I do have some empathy for the local residents with the disruption they’ve had – they recently hit the power lines due to bad working practices.

“That’s amongst other bad practices – in January of this, there was that much mud on the A38, I actually had a motorcycle accident on there, damaging myself and the motorcycle.

“I would like to send a message to whoever the contractors are that they could really improve their public relations if they could up their game and do their jobs properly.”