AN APPEAL has been lodged to build a house which one objector says will deface ‘a pristine beauty spot’ in Bratton Clovelly.

Mr J Codling has appealed against West Devon Borough Council’s refusal of the application, 4640/21/FUL, to build a house in a field east of the Clovelly Inn.

The application for the house was refused in March this year by WDBC on the grounds that would be out of keeping with its countryside location and that it is too large, being a three-bedroom house ‘in an area where the local housing need is for smaller one and two bedroom units in a terraced format’. It had received several objections from nearby residents, who pointed to the unspoilt nature of the site, saying it is rich in wildlife which would be disturbed if a house was built there.

The council’s head of development management practice Patrick Whymer, deciding the application under delegated powers, went on to say that the ‘proposal fails to maximise the efficient use of land on a site that could accommodate more dwellings to make a more cohesive development’ and that ‘insufficient information has been submitted to justify the dwelling in an area where there are likely to be impacts on trees and hedgerows’.This refusal followed objections from residents. One wrote: ‘The area where the proposed propert is to be built is an area where there are numerous wildlife animals including deer, owls, badgers, foxes and bats and I feel that their existence will be affected by this construction. The style of the property is not in keeping with the village. It looks more like a holiday chalet than a permanent residence.’

Another objector raised concerns about the access road onto a lane ‘on a blind bend and also on an extremely steep hill’ while a third said ‘to build here would be to deface a pristine beauty spot. Prettiness such as this dell are disappearing all over the county at an alarming rate’. However, in appealing to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate, planning consultants EJ FP Planning said: ‘The building is modest in scale and there are examples of bungalows elsewhere in the village, thus the proposed development reflects the scale and form of other dwellings in the village’.

The consultants added: ‘It is worth noting that the Codling family have been established in the village for over 50 years and the appellant wishes to build his own house to enable him to continue to live in the village’. They denied that the site would impact on nearby trees and hedgerows, saying that creating the entrance for the access road would only result in ‘minimal’ loss and there would be tree planting to compensate.