A FULL application to build hundreds of houses on the site formerly used by a school and then university could be just weeks away.

Nationwide Building Society is moving ahead with its plans to build 420 houses, with older people’s homes mixed in with houses for families and younger people, on the Oakfield campus site in Walcot.

No application for planning permission has yet been lodged, but company Piper Javelin No 1 Ltd, which is wholly owned by the building society, has asked planners at Swindon Borough Council whether it needs to have a full environmental impact assessment drawn up.

If so, that will have to be included in any application when it is made.

Most of the 240 homes will be houses, with some of those units, and a small block of flats, to be specially constructed to be particularly suitable for older people.

Buildings will range between one and four storeys in height and there will be a maximum of 410 parking spaces.

A landscaped park is proposed for the east of the site, which would link up to the large areas of green open space north and south of the campus.

The application to borough planners suggests that a full environmental impact assessment is not necessary.

It says: “The site is not in a sensitive area and the development will therefore not give rise to significant environmental effects.”

The land is now mainly “hardstanding where buildings once stood, some of which has been colonised by dense scrub, an area of unmanaged improved grassland in the centre and a species-rich hedgerow along the northern border and scattered trees.”

The letter continues that the site is considered of “low ecological value with limited potential to support protected or notable species.”

The hedgerow to the north may be cut back during development work but will not be significantly affected.

Nationwide has previously said it was deliberately designing the site to provide housing for both young and old, and is looking at interspersing the homes for older people in amongst the other units - what it called pepperpotting.

Stephen Uden, director of social investment, said: “Good communities combine young and old. There’s a lack of provision in Swindon and in fact everywhere of housing for older people.

The site was used by Park Grammar School and then Oakfield School from the 1950s until the turn of the century, when it was then used by the University of Bath until 2008.

It has been levelled and vacant ever since the university left a decade ago.

According to the agent’s letter an application with full details of the scheme will be lodged with the borough council in January.