AN AFFORDABLE modular homes provider has secured a boost after seeing two of its Mid Devon schemes approved. 

Zed Pods, which builds homes mostly in a factory before installing them in their desired location, has had an eight-home and a five-home scheme approved by Mid Devon planners. 

The firm, which had one of its projects in Bristol featured on the BBC’s One Show, will build eight homes in Beech Road, Tiverton, after demolishing four existing dwellings. 

It will build a two-storey block with four one-bed homes and four two-bed homes. 

In Hemyock, the firm will demolish existing garages and build five affordable homes, three of which will be two-bed homes and two three-bed ones. 

Both schemes will form part of Mid Devon District Council’s stock of social rented housing. 

Tiverton Town Council objected to the scheme there, claiming that the plans showed rooms “below the minimum size”. 

And Devon County Council, as the highways authority, initially recommended refusal of the Tiverton scheme because of a lack of parking, but more recently backed the plans now that one parking space and one visitor space would be provided per property. 

Hemyock Parish Council is “not content” with the application, citing concerns about the number of parking spaces and the layout and density of the building. 

Because the Hemyock scheme is being built partly on an existing parking area, the parish council had asked for a further two spaces to be provided, “taking the total to 18 parking spaces and meaning there was no overall loss of public parking in the area”. 

By Bradley Gerrard