PROPOSALS to put a storage shed in a field near Minehead have attracted opposition from a Government Planning Inspector who lives nearby.

Gareth Symons, a former planning officer with the old West Somerset Council, said his objection was being made in a personal capacity and not in his Planning Inspectorate role, where he would usually hear appeals against the refusal of a permission.

He was commenting on an application by Pamela Milnes to Somerset West and Taunton council to replace a derelict lean-to shed which had since been demolished on land known as Pam’s Patch, to the north of Woodcombe Cottages, Minehead.

But at their meeting last week, Minehead Town Council’s planning committee said they could see nothing wrong with the application and unanimously agreed not to recommend opposing it.

Mrs Milnes, who owns the field and lives nearby in Woodcombe, said she wanted to put up a 192 sq ft timber cladding shed on the land, which was currently used as an orchard.

Her agent, Adam Elston, said the orchard was within the Woodcombe Conservation Area and views of the shed would be obstructed by a large hedge on the northern boundary, while a new native hedge would be planted to the south of it.

Mr Elston said the eight-foot high building would measure 10 feet by 20 feet and would be used for storage in conjunction with maintaining the site. However, Mr Symons said the previous building was a ‘small tumble-down lean-to structure which for at least the last 15 years was unusable due to its very poor state of disrepair and overgrown state’.

Mr Symons said Mrs Milnes had told him she wanted to let her gardener store commercial gardening equipment because he had been searching for a business premises to rent.

He said the council should urgently clarify the potential use because it should be considered as a commercial/business storage which would ‘drastically undermine’ the character of a conservation area next to a popular public right of way on the edge of Exmoor National Park.

The small business use of the domestic garage-size building would also set a planning precedent, making it harder for the council to resist further development within the conservation area.

Mr Symons said the building would also affect a nearby mature sycamore tree, which would need branches lopped and could suffer significant root damage when the shed’s concrete base was laid. When Minehead planning committee discussed the application at their meeting last Tuesday, Cllr Anne Lawson said: “There are lots of objections to this but I have looked at the plans and can’t quite understand why. The whole area contains farm buildings of a similar size and construction and I am not sure what the problem is apart from it being in a conservation area. The proposed structure would be stained green and the roof would have green felt. It would be obscured from the southern view by a hedge.”

Agreeing with Cllr Lawson’s comments, chairman Cllr Mimi Palmer said the proposed building would be a temporary structure which was not above the permitted height.” She added: “I can’t see why planning permission should be refused.”

The application will be considered by district council planners at a future meeting.