PLANNERS today unanimously threw out a controversial scheme to build 136 homes on agricultural land on the edge of Watchet.

Dozens of local objectors attended the Somerset West and Taunton Council (SWT) planning committee meeting in Taunton where the decision was taken.

It follows a site visit held last May for planning committee members to see the Cleeve Hill area for themselves.

SWT major projects officer Simon Fox said the land was allocated for development in the local plan which ran until 2032.

Mr Fox said the application site represented two of three agricultural fields, with the landowner not yet having brought forward any proposals for the third one.

He recommended the application should be refused for nine reasons, which included lack of ‘affordable’ homes in the plans and the fact a realignment of the B3191 would be required but there were no proposals to protect the unstable clifftop and thereby safeguard the road.

Mr Fox said the scheme would also affect the historic landscape character of the area and not enough evidence had been presented to show the site could accommodate as many homes or that it could be suitably drained, while the need to minimise carbon emissions had also not been met.

He said there were elements of the plans which did not appear to be cohesive or well thought through and there was an argument that for the moment the area should be considered as a ‘no build zone’.

It would not mean building could never take place, but ‘we would need significantly more information than we have now’.

A major issue was the realignment of the B3191 which would have to be undertaken, but this in turn would require cliff protection work to ensure the road was not undermined.

Mr Fox said: “The lack of discussion between the applicant and highways authority indicates there is no plan actively being worked on to provide for cliff protection work or any funds being allocated to it.”

He said to give an indication of the coastal erosion issue, since 1954 the road had already been moved inland by 26 feet, while in West Park, Watchet, the cliff face had subsided by six feet in recent months.

Mr Fox said: “This is an actively eroding coastline.”

He said the cost of realigning the road was estimated at £7 million ‘if you are lucky’ and ‘if you are not lucky, then significantly more’.

Planning agent Peter Grubb on behalf of applicant Cleeve Hill Development complained that SWT officers had ‘moved the goal posts’ by adding six reasons for refusal to the committee report on top of only three which had been previously raised.

Mr Grubb said it did not allow him any opportunity to respond to, or challenge, the objections and councillors should therefore fundamentally reconsider Mr Fox’s recommendation.

He said £10 million had to be taken out of the scheme to meet the cost of realigning the B3191 which was why the development could not deliver any ‘affordable’ homes.

Mr Grubb said the officers were ‘effectively condemning the site to be permanently undeliverable’.

More than 500 public objections were received by SWT as well as opposition from Watchet town councillors.

Nearly a dozen objectors spoke at the planning meeting and made the point that more than 1,000 new homes were already in the pipeline for Watchet, which would double the town’s population.

They said residents were not against new development per se, as illustrated by the fact that there was support for housing plans which had been submitted for the former Wansborough Paper Mill site.

Cllr Ian Aldridge told the committee the Cleeve Hill site was only in the local plan because at the time it was prepared the Planning Inspectorate had demanded 'much more' land needed to be shown for potential development.

The results was that a ‘double figures’ number of sites were put forward at the eleventh hour and the former West Somerset Council adopted them without any consideration of the individual locations.

Cllr Aldridge said: “That plan is what we have inherited. It is the sort of problem which that lack of due diligence has brought about.

"The plan is nothing more than a list of building sites which nobody has thought about beyond where they are on the map.”

The refusal decision was proposed by Cllr Roger Habgood and seconded by Cllr Loretta Whetlor and was carried unanimously.

A previous development plan for the Cleeve Hill site by an unnamed applicant was also refused in August, 2020.