Agenda item

5b.

24/00787/FUL Demolition of existing dwellings and stable/storage buildings and redevelopment with three detached dwellings.

End Oak, Water Lane, Bovingdon, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP3 0NA

Councillor Walker declared an interested in the item as he sits on the Parish Planning committee. He confirmed he would take no part in the discussion or voting.

The Case Officer, Heather Edey introduced the report to Members and said that the application had been referred to the Committee due to contrary views of the Parish Council.

Trevor Jones and Paul Newton spoke in support of the application.

It was proposed by Councillor Guest and seconded by Councillor Smith-Wright to

REFUSE the application.

Vote:

For:                 Against:                       Abstained:

5                         4                                  2      

Resolved: That planning permission be REFUSED.

RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended that the application be REFUSED.

Reason(s) for Refusal: 

1.         By virtue of their increased scale, height, volume and footprint, the proposed replacement dwellings would cause significant harm to the visual and spatial openness of the Green Belt. This harm would be exacerbated by way of the intensification of the use of the site and by way of the siting of the new dwelling house 3, and it is therefore considered that the proposal would have a greater impact on the openness of the Green Belt than existing development, therein failing to accord with exception g), Paragraph 154 of the NPPF (2023).

            Given that the works fail to accord with any of the other exceptions for appropriate development in the Green Belt and that it is not considered that the arguments in favour of the development are sufficient to constitute the very special circumstances required to justify the development and outweigh its harm on the Green Belt, the works are unacceptable in principle, amounting to inappropriate development in the Green Belt. In light of this, and noting that the works conflict with the purposes of including land within the Green Belt, (by way of encroaching into the countryside), the proposal fails to accord with Policy CS5 of the Core Strategy (2013) and the NPPF (2023).

2.         By reason of its siting, House 3 would detract from the established character of the area, appearing at odds with the local pattern of development. Given that the development would appear incongruous with the established and underlying building pattern, the proposal would detract from the character and appearance of the area, therein failing to accord with Policies CS5, CS11 and CS12 of the Core Strategy (2013) and the NPPF (2023).

3.         The application does not provide sufficient information to satisfy the Council, as the competent authority, that the proposed development will not adversely affect the integrity of the Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation. There are no alternative solutions/mitigation or credible imperative reasons of overriding public interest why the proposed development should be permitted. In the absence of such information, and in the absence of an appropriate legal agreement to mitigate such adverse impact, the proposed development is contrary to Policy CS26 of the Dacorum Borough Core Strategy (2013), Paragraph 175 of the National Planning Policy Framework (2023) and the requirements of the Habitats Regulations (2017 and 2019).

Informatives:

1.              Planning permission has been refused for this proposal for the clear reasons set out in this decision notice. The Council acted pro-actively through early engagement with the applicant at the pre-application stage. Whilst attempts have been made to amend the proposal to overcome the concerns raised at pre-application stage, it is not considered that these concerns have been fully addressed and the Council therefore remain of the view that the proposal is unacceptable. Since the Council attempted to find solutions, the requirements of the Framework (paragraph 38) have been met and in accordance with the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2015.