CONTROVERSIAL plans for eight three-storey executive-style homes in the countryside near West Buckland have been withdrawn – two years after they were proposed.

Blackbird Inn owner Peter Welling decided to pull the application shortly before planning officers were due to formally refuse it.

Mr Welling wanted to build the houses on the former public house’s car park on the opposite side of the A38.

Somerset West and Taunton Council (SWT) received objections from parish councillors, residents, and then-county councillor John Thorne, who said at the time it would be ‘planning gone crazy’ if the development was allowed.

The design of the houses was later amended in an effort to meet SWT planning officer concerns and the properties were also reduced in height to two storeys, while the proposed number was cut from eight to six homes.

However, SWT senior planning officer Denise Todd said the scheme was still ‘visually dominant’ and the design did not reflect the surrounding area. She said even If the design could be improved, the scheme would still not comply with a number of planning policies and would anyway have to be refused.

A required landscape assessment had never been received, the ‘affordable homes’ element of the development had not been addressed, and although the pub had been changed to a bed and breakfast establishment Mr Welling had not demonstrated why that was necessary.

And that was without resolving the issue of phosphate emissions where Natural England required new development to show how it would not add to levels of the chemical reaching the Somerset Levels where it was causing harm to wildlife.

Mr Welling’s agent Emily Robinson withdrew the application three days before a deadline for its refusal but said a revised application, possibly for fewer houses, would be progressed later.