AN application by Style Front London Ltd to build five new homes, following the demolition of an existing bungalow on land at Virginia, 115 Lymington Bottom, Four Marks, has been dismissed at appeal.

Following a site vissettlement policy boundaryit on October 23 and taking into account written representations, government planning inspector Gareth Thomas felt the main issue to be whether the appeal site was a suitable location for the proposed development.

In reporting his findings, Mr Thomas pointed out that the five houses were to be served by a single-access drive, with two properties set back from but fronting the road and three taking up what is essentially the host property’s sizeable rear garden.

While the front two properties would be inside, the rear three would, according to Mr Thomas, lie outside the settlement policy boundary for Four Marks and would interrupt the linear nature of development along Lymington Bottom.

Due to the gently rising nature of the appeal site, they would also be more prominent from the road and “significantly at odds with the defining character” of the surrounding area.

Mr Thomas could find no overriding ‘need’ to justify development outside the settlement policy boundary, pointing out the Four Marks and South Medstead area had seen planning permission granted for 316 dwellings, excluding windfall sites, which represented an over-provision in new development of 80 per cent within the three years following adoption of the East Hampshire District Council’s joint core strategy development plan.

Furthermore, the proposal was offered as an open-market housing site rather than for affordable housing for people with a proven affordable housing need, which would be the only exception permissible for outside the settlement policy boundary development under the joint core strategy and Medstead and Four Marks Neighbourhood Plan policies, especially as the area was able to demonstrate a deliverable five-year supply of housing land.

In dismissing the appeal, Mr Thomas said: “Failure to comply with the development plan and the environmental harm that has clearly been identified would mean that the proposal would not constitute sustainable development.”

Meanwhile, a planning inspector has given the go ahead for an additional dwelling to be built within the site of 119 Lymington Bottom, Four Marks, following a refusal by East Hampshire planners last November to grant permission for the development.

In considering the proposal, inspector Joanna Reid felt the main issue to be the effect it would have on the character and appearance of the surrounding area.

In her report, Ms Reid pointed out that the appeal site lies within the settlement policy boundary for Four Marks, as defined in the Medstead and Four Marks Neighbourhood Plan, and includes most of the garden of, and the existing access to, the existing single-storey detached dwelling of Westwood.

The immediate area, she recorded, comprises dwellings that are set well back from both sides of Lymington Bottom in good-sized plots with countryside beyond.

The inspector felt the proposed two-storey dwelling would be “nestled into the rising ground, and partly screened in views from the east by existing on-site trees” and that its “compact form and traditional detailing would fit well with its edge of settlement siting and the adjoining countryside”.

Furthermore, because “it would maintain the broadly linear development pattern in the approach to the village from Five Lanes crossroad it would respect local distinctiveness” and, she felt, “would harmonise with the design and detailing of 68 and 70 Lymington Bottom”, reflecting “the wide diversity in materials and styles seen throughout the village, in accordance with the Four Marks village design statement”.

In allowing the appeal, Ms Reid concluded: “I consider that the proposal would not harm the character and appearance of the surrounding area.”