Proposals by Gleeson Strategic Land Limited for 30 homes on land at Catherine’s Well, Milton Abbas, have been dismissed at appeal by the Planning Inspectorate.

The application was refused by Dorset Council in August last year after being amended from an original plan for up to 58 homes in February that year, and the subsequent appeal was decided on July 16 after a hearing on May 17 and 18.

The site, outside but adjacent to the village settlement boundary, was considered but rejected in favour of three other sites in the Milton Abbas Neighbourhood Plan, which was formally incorporated into the Dorset Local Plan on June 26. Planning inspector S Harley found that while the public benefits, including 40 per cent affordable housing, out-weighed the less than substantial harm to heritage assets, the adverse impact of allowing the proposal, which conflicted with the Neighbourhood Plan, would significantly outweigh the benefits even given the recent poor record of housing delivery in the North Dorset area.

The planning inspector said of the setting back of some of houses from the road with greenspace and extra planting: “Neither this in itself, nor the open spaces along two of the other boundaries or the retained paddocks, are sufficient to demonstrate that the houses themselves are arranged in other than a suburban estate like layout, somewhat randomly placed in a field. It does not reflect the historic character of properties nestled within the landscape within or adjacent to woodlands or the unique rural quality of the more recent developments.”

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