Yeovil residents have called for an urgent rethink on plans to redevelop a former public school site in the town centre.

The Park School operated from its base off the A37 Kingston before its relocation to Chilton Cantelo in 2018 and its eventual closure in May 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

South Somerset District Council’s area south committee voted in early-October to approve plans for 45 new homes on the vacant site, put forward by the Stonewater housing association.

Residents living near the former school have called on the developer to think again to prevent crashes on the busy main road.

The site, which has been vacant since the school’s relocation, lies near the busy Hospital Roundabout, a short distance from the Yeovil Conservative Club and the town centre.

Of the 45 homes to be delivered within the site, 30 will be built from scratch, with the remaining 15 being created by converting existing buildings, including the grade two listed Kingston House.

A total of 31 of the new homes will be affordable – far in excess of the council’s target of 35 per cent affordable homes for any new development of ten homes or more – and 50 car parking spaces will be provided within the site.

Primary access will be from The Park, through the two access points onto Kingston will be maintained, with a one-way system being implemented to account for the narrowness of the existing entrances.

Stonewater was previously granted permission to build 24 homes on the Park School’s former junior site, accessed from Park Court near The Armoury public house.

Alex Dunn and J. Martin Warr, who both live on The Park,  described the plans as “idiocy” and believe that emergency vehicles will struggle to enter the site from the Kingston junctions.

Mr Dunn said: “For a fire engine to get in, it has to be more than 5.3 metres wide.

“You can do that if you take the listed gates off, but you’ve still got the traffic coming off the roundabout trying to go over to Preston Road or Ilchester Road.

“You’ve got a bus parked there, partially on the highway because there’s not quite enough room for them. If you’ve got a fire engine or removal lorry trying to turn in, it isn’t going to work.

“A fire engine would have to swing out into the right-hand lane and cut across the left-hand lane.”

Mr Dunn said a safer option would have been to allow access on the road adjoining the Conservative Club, which has greater visibility of the main road and the Hospital roundabout.

Mr Warr described the council’s decision as “haphazard” and said it could lead to The Park’s green space being damaged by the sheer volume of additional cars.

He said: “The Park is a heritage garden given to the community more than 100 years ago, and it’s going to be compromised by the traffic passing through it.

“There’s only one parking space per house in there, and only four visitors places, which is not going to be enough, so where are the cars going to park?

“They’re going to drive up onto the grass, onto The Park itself. It’s the wrong development on the wrong site – it’s beyond all logic.”

Neither gentleman – or the dozens of residents who signed a petition against the plans – has any objection to homes being built on the former school site in principle.

However, they feel that 45 homes is too many, and will not leave enough green space for local residents.

Mr Dunn said: “They should build houses there, because it’s a lovely site close to the town, but they just need to cut the numbers down.

“If they’re going to have social housing, let’s have a play area inside there.

“I don’t care who they build the houses for, but I don’t believe in segregating the market houses from the social ones.”

Mr Warr added: “My proposal would be to use the school building as a hub, as a retirement set-up with low-profile bungalows which wouldn’t have been obtrusive.

“The building could even be an annex to the hospital or a doctor’s surgery – it could be any number of things, other than being part of an intense, multi-level development.”

Stonewater has not indicated how soon it intends to begin construction of the new homes.