Objections overruled as planners allow Blackdown Hills self-build housing scheme

CONTROVERSIAL plans have been approved for a new housing estate on the Blackdown Hills comprising entirely of self or custom-build homes.

The homes will be built in a two-acre paddock off Culmstock Road, Hemyock, despite objections from 30 local residents and the parish council.

There were also concerns expressed by the Blackdown Hills National Landscape (BHNL), county highways officers, and Historic England, which was worried about the development’s impact on nearby Hemyock Castle.

Applicant Simon Steele-Perkins, a director of land promotion and investment company Waddeton Park Ltd, of Clyst St Mary, was granted outline consent, with the detailed design to be agreed later.

Planning agent Darren Summerfield, of Summerfield Planning Ltd, Exeter, said the paddock was originally part of nearly 10 acres of land designated for public open space use when permission was previously given to Cavanna Homes for 40 houses to be built on an adjoining site.

However, Mr Summerfield said the required public space had been provided and the paddock was not needed as part of that agreement.

He said the new dwellings would include four three-bedroom properties and five with four bedrooms.

Mr Summerfield acknowledged the paddock was outside Hemyock’s settlement boundary and ‘for the purposes of planning it is within the countryside’.

But, he said the boundaries were drawn ‘some time ago’ and the site clearly sat ‘within the built-up area’ of the village.

He said: “The site is not isolated from the village.”

Mr Summerfield said Mid Devon District Council was failing to meet its housing land supply requirements, particularly demand for self and custom build homes, which meant windfall sites should be approved.

He said Hemyock was ‘a sustainable rural location with a limited level of services where a small-scale residential development can contribute positively toward maintaining the vitality and viability of the settlement and community’.

Council planning officer John Millar said the developer had entered a legal agreement to provide £162,000 toward off-site affordable housing, £30,477.15 for the provision of off-site public open space enhancements, and a £3,706 contribution to secondary school transport.

Mr Millar said the site was a grassed field outside but adjacent to the Hemyock settlement boundary and not far from the scheduled ancient monument Hemyock Castle in one direction and grade two starred listed St Mary’s Church in the other.

He said the approved local plan was now considered ‘out of date’ for assessing local housing need and accepted a shortage in the supply of housing land would inevitably become worse.

Mr Millar said subject to the detail being agreed later, it was considered the development could be carried out without causing demonstrable harm to the area.

BHNL concern centred on resistance to speculative development rather than a plan-led approach to house building in villages.

A spokesperson said the preferred approach was for such a proposal to be worked up as a community-led project so the dwellings met local needs.

Parish councillors felt the application did not meet Hemyock’s housing needs, which were for ‘affordable housing’ for local residents.