The below article was featured on the Warminster Wire website on 13th November 2015.

A Bristol-based businessman who started his successful company from a phone box on a city council housing estate wants major housing developments in Warminster and Frome in an attempt to reduce housing pressure in Bristol.

Writing in the South West Business magazine this month, Stephen Fear refers to the need to build 85,000 homes in Bristol by 2035.

Instead of focusing on traditional development ‘overspill’ areas immediately around Bristol, he wants planners and developers to look at towns with good railway links to Bristol, including Warminster, Frome, Weston-super-Mare, Keynsham and Severn Beach.

Mr Fear says he has written to the housing minister asking for an urgent meeting to discuss his idea. He believes current plans to be outdated because they encourage more cars rather than public transport links.

Mr Fear, who started his own cleaning company at the age of 15 and is now chairman of the Fear Group, told the magazine: “There is no point shouting our green credentials in Bristol as European Green Capital and then building communities which rely on cars and buses, which primarily run on diesel, to deliver workers to jobs in the cities like Bristol or Bath which support these satellite towns.

“Workers travelling into Bristol from Portishead have no choice other than to use their car or a bus so that they can drive into work and clog up the streets of the city while they spend eight hours sat at their desk.

“We really must do better and should focus on expanding towns such as Frome, Keynsham, Warminster, Weston-super-Mare and even Severn Beach, where good railway connections exist.”

You can read the full article here in South West Business.

Around 1,400 new homes are already earmarked for Warminster in the local council core strategy and neighbourhood plans. With stiff and heated opposition to developments planned recently, Mr Fear’s idea may receive a cool reception in Warminster.

Read the original article here