A MAMMOTH housing development criticised over fears it could increase traffic and threaten wildlife was approved yesterday.

Multi-million pound developer Taylor Wimpey is to build 224 homes at the site of a former police training centre in Cwmbran.

Work is expected to begin in early 2016 with the development set to be completed within four to five years.

About 30 per cent of the homes will be affordable, Taylor Wimpey said.

The first householders are expected to move in in autumn 2016.

Torfaen council planning department had recommended the application for approval.

Taylor Wimpey said the scheme near Greenmeadow Way would help address needs for housing in Torfaen.

Site manager James Morgan, 35, said yesterday: "It's exiting building much needed homes."

Last summer, Gwent Wildlife Trust warned that some of the last wildflower meadows in the UK could be destroyed if the development was given the green light.

The Trust warned the development could lead to the destruction and fragmentation of wildlife.

But the planning department concluded it would not have an adverse impact on the ecological interest of this site after Taylor Wimpey submitted a Wildlife Protection Plan and Ecological Management Plan.

The planning department indicated the latest plans would help to protect the site's wildlife as well as how it would be managed in the long term including the grassland, bats, badgers and reptiles.

Residents had also voiced concerns about the lack of secondary access at the site and that the development would be a “large cul de sac”.

They warned the single access onto Greenmeadow Way could lead to unacceptably high traffic flows, and that the development did not provide adequate levels of parking.

But Torfaen planning department said that Taylor Wimpey had agreed to spend £77,000 on traffic calming measures, which would help address the lack of secondary access and that the latest plans included enough parking spaces.

The council department also stressed the development has been designed to comply with the requirements of the emergency services.

St Dials ward Cllr Liz Haynes was critical of the lack of secondary access saying it had originally been favoured by the planning department.

She said: "I understand that the developers have submitted a traffic impact assessment that negates the need for one, but this council and its local development plan clearly had that second entrance in its determinations.

"I think there's still inadequate visiting parking spaces."

A Taylor Wimpey spokesman said: “We are confident we have prepared a high-quality application which maximises the use of this brownfield site to deliver much-needed new homes – including affordable housing – in a sustainable location in Torfaen."

Councillors approved the plans at Pontypool Civic Centre on Tuesday afternoon [Nov 17].