FEARS have been raised that fresh plans for up to 280 homes on the edge of Cirencester could ‘destroy’ the identity of a nearby village.

Property company Robert Hitchins has submitted a new application to Cotswold District Council for a development of up to 280 houses on land west of Kingshill Lane in Cirencester.

However, feedback on the plans raises concerns that the 13.49-hectare development will mean that the neighbouring village of Preston is absorbed into Cirencester.

Along with the homes, the application requests permission for associated works including infrastructure, ancillary facilities, open space, landscaping and a pumping station, as well as the construction of a new vehicular access off Kingshill Lane.

One respondent to the application said: “A development of this scale at this location would destroy the unique identity of the village of Preston.

“The existing green buffer would be built over and drastically reduced, negatively impacting the village.

“Instead of being a separate, distinctly-rural settlement (as it has been for centuries), Preston would become absorbed into the suburbs of Cirencester.”

Another respondent said: “The development will effectively join up Preston with Cirencester and destroy the integrity of our village.”

An application for the development was previously submitted to CDC by Robert Hitchins in May 2023.

It was refused in the September of that year.

Included in the reasons given for the refusal by CDC were that the plans ‘would result in the significant encroachment of residential development into an area of open countryside that makes a positive contribution to the rural setting of the settlements of Cirencester and Preston’.

“The proposal would result in the loss of the green buffer that exists between the respective settlements, thereby leading to a coalescence of the settlements to the detriment of the rural character and setting,” the decision notice said.

An appeal was lodged over the application’s refusal, but this was withdrawn in May this year.

Robert Hitchins’ resubmitted application responds to comments received on the previous application and the reasons for refusal.

A document from development consultancy Pegasus Group, on behalf of Robert Hitchins, from the resubmitted application says: “It is important to note that the application addresses the concerns of coalescence between Kingshill and Preston and that a landscape buffer is proposed.

“Native tree and hedge planting has potential to be beneficial to reinforce and extend the limited existing green infrastructure.

“This can strengthen the natural containment of the development and reduce potential visual prominence from potentially-sensitive visual receptors, preventing encroachment into the wider rural landscape.”

The current application is under consultation until Thursday, November 28.