Concerns about safety and overcrowding fell on deaf ears this week as Wiltshire Council approved plans for 10 new houses and an access road in Bradford on Avon.

Plans for the 0.33-hectare site on Winsley Road include the demolition of two houses to be replaced with a mixture of two-, three-, and four-bedroom houses and a new access road.

There were numerous concerns from residents, the town council and town’s Preservation Trust to name a few, on Wiltshire Council’s website regarding the application. These included the architecture not in keeping with the local area, concerns for safety regarding the access road as it is close to the roundabout on Bath Road and Winsley Road, and the height of the land resulting in the houses being higher than the surrounding properties.

Jocelyn Fielding, chair of Bradford on Avon Preservation Trust’s planning committee, said: “It is absolutely appalling. It is completely in the wrong place. It is overcrowded and, in my opinion, very poor architecture.”

The town council recommended refusal of the original application, which consisted of 11 houses, and again recommended refusal for the latest approved application of 10 houses.

Gwen Allison, chair of the town council’s planning and town development committee, said: “The planning committee thought it was overdeveloped and we are regretful it has gone through.

“We are concerned about the highway issue.”

Mary Bolingbroke, a member of Friends of Winsley Road campaign, said: “Our representatives were brilliant. The campaign group managed to get the houses down by one, to ten, and reduced the height of some properties.

“Regardless of the planning application, the road will still be dangerous.”