Outline Planning Permission was allowed in a planning appeal for 8 dwellings on an edge of settlement site in Bedfordshire for a local property development company.

This edge of settlement site is now surrounded on three sides by approved development and was therefore considered to be a natural extension to the village. An Indicative Layout was prepared by CSa Environmental. For more information click here.

The planning application was recommended for approval at the Development Management Committee by the local authority officers.  However Committee members resolved to refuse the permission in the face of local opposition, using landscape and ecological reasons for refusal.

A subsequent Landscape report was commissioned to support the Planning Appeal submission.

The Inspector considered that the proposed development would be in keeping with the general grain and form of development in the street scene, simply infilling in a logical form. Moreover, the development would be set behind the existing hedgerow to the site, and incorporate a replanted and bolstered hedgerow to the northern side of the proposed access which would also help to mitigate the impact of the development. Open fields would be retained to the rear with wider hedgerow planting to the rear boundaries of the plots.

The Inspector was therefore satisfied that this would help to soften the transition between urban and rural, and help assimilate the site into the wider landscape.

The planning application was also supported by an executive summary from an experienced Planning Solicitor in order to summarise the issues and the local and national planning policy framework applicable to this proposal.

A copy of the planning appeal decision can be obtained here.

We have also now obtained the Reserved Matters approval – more details can be found here.

Please contact us if we can assist you with similar proposals.