Ground could soon be broken on proposals to built dozens of houses in Board Blunsdon.

Newland Homes, which is based in Barnwood in Gloucestershire, has applied to be allowed to start work earlier on its plans to build houses off the High Street in the village on the former Thames Water site.

The company has permission to build 52 homes, but has lodged detailed plans to build 37 in the first phase of development.

At the moment workers are clearing trees from the perimeter of the land.

Newland has applied to be able to start work on the site from 7.30am on Mondays to Fridays and 8am on Saturdays and to continue until 5.30pm on weekdays and 1pm on Saturdays.

That’s a change to he condition imposed that work can only start at 8am on weekdays and 9am on Saturdays.

The company says it wants to “help avoid school drop-off times”.

The homes could be built on the site at the junction of the High Street and Ermin Street just north-east of the A419 Blunsdon Bypass.

Plans for the first phase of building on the site show 37 houses arranges around one single street, with access to the eastern end of the site from Broad Blunsdon High Street.

Deputy chairman of Blunsdon Parish Council, Coun Stuart Boyd said: "There is a concern about increasing traffic - the route to Coldharbour, and the bridge over the A419 is always very busy and anything that adds to that doesn't help, but Newlands has widened the access to the site to improve visibility and we are working with the borough council to widen the footpath from the site entrance to Ermin Street."

Coun Boyd said the local council had supported the application by the developers, albeit slightly reluctantly: "We are up to about 400 new homes being built or soon to be built, so we have had a lot of development here recently. But we had early conversations with the company, and gave a productive relationship - and we accept that there is a need for more homes so we supported this as a reasonable use of the site."

From the entrance on the High Street the road forms a square U-shape heading towards Ermin Street before turning north again towards the High Street.

There is a mixture of two and 2.5-storey houses with a variety of detached, semi-detached and terraced units.

The developer says it wants to build both wide and narrow-fronted houses: “which creates interest and variation in rooflines”

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The company has already completed 57 houses nearby on the other side of Ermin Street near the A419.