Monmouthshire County Council have registered an application for outline planning permission for up to 370 homes with 6.5 hectares of employment land on ground at Wonastow Road (DC/2013/ 00368).

The application has come from South Wales Land Developments through its agent, Barratt Homes of Cardiff.

Outline permission means that the plans have been put forward in principle, without any detail on the building materials to be used while the employment land refers to proposals for industrial and business development.

The application comes under the Local Develoment Plan (LDP) which forms the basis for decisions in the determination of planning applications and the target for new homes that it set was increased after a recent inspector's preliminary report on its findings.

The plans were recommended for refusal by Monmouth Town Council in June 2013 who gave 13 reasons why they considered the plan for extra housing on land that incorporates Model Farm buildings was unsuitable.

The total area of the land is 21 hectares, although some of the land is on an area identified by the Environment Agency as a flood plain and liable to flood once in 1,000 years.

A number of online objections have been received raising concerns about the impact on local roads and lack of infrastructure to support the housing development, such as school, dentists, doctors surgeries and town car parks.

Natural Resources Wales, the Lower Wye Internal Drainage Board, Monmouth Town Council and a flood protection expert all expressed concern about the flooding issues associated with the proposed development.

The site was one of a number sold as part of a package of land and property sites across Wales and purchased by South Wales Land Developments Ltd in March 2012.

The parcels of land had been transferred from the Welsh Government to a public body called the Regeneration Investment Fund (RIFW) for Wales in 2010.

The Guernsey-based company acquired the sites from RIFW in a £20m deal which was referred to Wales Audit Office (WAO) in September 2012 by Conservative AM Byron Davies, the Shadow Minister for Regeneration.

The WAO launched an investigation into the decision to sell the land privately rather than by public auction.

The parcel of land off Wonastow Road was adopted by MCC in its planning blueprint, which would see the site rise in value.

A claw back was incorporated into the arrangement should there be a significant increase in the value of the land sold although no details of the amount of claw back was given.