A CONTROVERSIAL application to build nine houses on a greenfield site in Carhampton close to a listed building will be considered by Somerset Council planners.
MHPF (UK) LTD (Dunster Estate) has applied for planning permission for a development on a paddock south of Hilary Close, Carhampton, which backs on to the Grade II listed Winsors House and its garden.
Carhampton Parish Council will decide whether to object to the scheme at its meeting next week and the application will be considered by Somerset Council planning committee at a future meeting.
If given the go-ahead, the development would see three houses being retained by the estate and rented at 75 per cent of the market rate to agricultural workers and local people.
It is planned to build one four-bedroom, three three-bedroom, and five two-bedroom homes with car-parking, private gardens, and some amenity space.
A statement from the developers said: “Of the two-bedroom dwellings, one is a single-storey bungalow, and one is a one-and-a-half storey chalet bungalow.
“These would meet the needs of elderly and disabled people and provide practical living accommodation for lifetime occupation.
“All the mature hedging and trees would be retained around the boundary of the site, and the back gardens of new homes would abut the gardens of neighbouring properties along Hilary Close.”
Access from the main road would be through the Hilary Close site and extend to a ‘turning head’ for refuse collection vehicles and other road users.
When a planning application for a two-bedroom house on an adjoining site was made in 2018, objections from the parish council included inaccuracies in the plans, inadequate driveways and visibility splays, the effect on a listed building, the risk of soil slippage, and the impact on an already overloaded sewage system.
Residents from five houses bordering the site put forward objections that their homes and gardens would be overlooked, and that access to the proposed development would be via a single-track driveway owned by Hilary Close residents.