Planning permission has been granted for 370 new houses and six hectares of industrial units on Wonastow Road. Monmouthshire County Council's (MCC) Planning Committee voted 11 to four in favour of accepting the application which forms part of the housing plan, the Local Development Plan (LDP), for the next ten years. The plan was registered in May 2013 and has been subject to scrutiny from Monmouth Town Council, the Lower Wye Internal Drainage Board (LWIDB), Natural Resources Wales, Gwent Wildlife Trust and archaeologists. The plans were back on the table last month following alterations to the drainage strategy, addressing concerns highlighted by the LWIDB. Again Monmouth Town Councillors raised their own concerns at a recent planning meeting on 1st September, about aspects of the overall plan. Councillor Bob Hayward expressed paricular worry about the density of the plot, and the viability of the proposed industrial units. Cllr Hayward criticised the failure of the application to take on board many of the comments made by the Welsh Inspector who had examined the Local Development Plan (LDP), which allows for planning on this scale. But MCC decided to give the go ahead to developers Barrett Homes and David Wilson Homes. David Cummings, chairman of Monmouth and District Chamber of Commerce commented: "On Tuesday last, the decision was made to go ahead with the housing development, which the Chamber has opposed since first conceived, but a number of important questions remain. "They are: how do we stop these new householders feeling disenfranchised and not part of the town community? "The location is likely to attract those who will out migrate to work. How do we persuade them to shop in Monmouth? "As the new residents are very unlikely to walk into town, how do we accommodate up to 800 new vehicles when our car parks are overflowing at peak times? "How do we reassure businesses currently located on the Wonastow Road Industrial Estates and whose premises nearly flood at the moment, that the new development will not make the flooding issue worse ? "How can hundreds of teenage children make the thirty minute walk safely to the new Comprehensive School through an industrial estate and down Wonastow Road, which currently has little pavement and is frequented by lots of commercial vehicles and no pedestrian crossings?" MCCs head of planning, George Ashworth said: "The information provided was more than sufficient to satisfy the Local Planning Authority that there would be no worsening of flood risk below the new housing and employment scheme, and a good prospect that there would actually be lessening of flooding threats for adjoining property owners. "The Drainage Strategy couldn't go into 'final' level of detail  as that would require precise information on porosity of driveways, roof areas, water harvesting etc., and such information couldn't be available at an outline planning application stage. However, the drainage information was of sufficient detail such that both the Internal Drainage Board and the Natural Resources Wales requested that the final detailed Surface Water Management Strategy shall reflect the information as set out in the submitted Drainage Strategy."