A controversial application to build five four-bedroomed properties has been refused.
Lake District National Park Authority development control committee members expressed concerns about the harm the homes at High Green, Troutbeck, would have caused to the conservation area in which they were due to be built.
The decision to refuse went against area planner Jackie Ratcliffe’s recommendation to approve the application, which attracted dozens of representations.
Ms Ratcliffe told the meeting that the local occupancy properties, whose main access would have been from Scot Brow, would have been ‘irregularly and informally arranged’ and reached by a communal driveway.
“Plots one, three, four and five follow the design principles of a traditional, rendered, two-storey cottage with subservient stone outbuildings,” she said. “[Plot two] is a modern interpretation of a converted bank barn.”
Ms Ratcliffe described the type of housing as ‘appropriate for this location’.
“The layout, design and appearance of the proposed development, in my opinion, would not have a harmful or significant impact on the character of the settlement, the conservation area, the setting of the listing buildings, or the world heritage site,” she said.
“The proposals would also have a neutral impact in wider landscape terms.”
She outlined highways and access being the ‘most disputed issue’ but said routes into the site did ‘not raise any safety concerns’.
However, objector Trish Donson addressed the committee to say an increase in vehicles at the location would have placed huge pressure on the fragile historic bridleways and on to the dangerous junctions with Scot Brow.
“This tranquil, agricultural site, visited by one farm vehicle, will be urbanised,” she said.
Another objector, Lorayne Wall, planning officer at conservation charity Friends of the Lake District, described the proposed properties as large, luxury, prestige homes designed to look like farmhouses with attached barns.
“Yet the proposed layout is that of a suburban cul-de-sac,” she said.
“It would not meet genuine local need and would contrast sharply with the irregular built form of Troutbeck, harming the largely intact local character.”
Harry Tonge, of chartered town planning firm Steven Abbott Associates LLP, spoke on behalf of applicant Highthwaite Ltd.
He said the development would have made effective and efficient use of land within Troutbeck to deliver local needs housing.
“As highlighted by representations received in relation to the application, the landscape and character of the area surrounding Troutbeck is such that opportunities to deliver family homes are very limited,” he said.
“Therefore it’s important, where sites do become available, the amount of housing is maximised in a sensitive manner. That’s what’s been achieved on this site.”
He said occupiers, who were local couples from the local area, had been lined up for three of the houses.
In the ensuing discussion among development control committee members, Jim Jackson said he was minded to support the application ‘with reluctance’.
“I think the time we’ve given this reflects the conflict we always have of overbuilding on green within the Lake District,” he said.
“So I think right at the forefront of our minds is that but, at the same time, we know we need new houses, we know we need more houses.”
He said: “It’s an area I know well, I love the views, I love the views from opposite, and I do think that the development won’t necessarily, in my opinion, harm those views because it looks in keeping with the string of properties up the valley.”
Judith Derbyshire said she liked the design of the properties but felt they were ‘too large’.
“I feel it would be better to have smaller properties there and so, therefore, looking at his application and this application for larger properties, my feeling is that I will be voting against it,” she said.
Jay Sayers said: “I think they are very big, the chimneys do stand out and, personally, I would prefer smaller [homes].”
Hugh Branney said the proposal constituted a further gentrification of what’s happening in the national park now.
“Four-bedroom, very expensive, at the expense of green space and trees and access, all of that,” he said.
Committee chairman Geoff Davies said: “I find that I’m not convinced that the benefit outweighs the negative things in this case.”
