Five reasons given for refusal of retrospective holiday home

A retrospective planning application for holiday accommodation in a village near Bath has been refused.

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The application had been submitted to Bath & North East Somerset Council after enforcement officers visited Park Farm at Colliers Lane in Newton St Loe, where a shipping container had been converted into a cabin-style holiday let.

The enforcement team said there had been an unauthorised change of use of the land and considered the container to be a building, while the decking amounted to development.

A retrospective application was then submitted by planning consultants on behalf of Allota Futureland Limited to formally change the use of agricultural land for stationing the shipping container for holiday use, along with timber decking, a hot tub and balustrade.

The holiday let, which is green corrugated metal with floor-to-ceiling windows, is close to farm buildings and next to a track that leads to a public footpath.

The consultants argued that the shipping container is closer to the technical definition of a caravan, and the scheme is an appropriate and sustainable form of rural development.

Planning officers disagreed, however and have turned down the application on five grounds.

They said insufficient information had been submitted to show the development will not result in a net loss of biodiversity, nor that an appropriate biodiversity net gain can be provided.

They branded it “inappropriate” development in the Green Belt and there were no special circumstances to outweigh the harm caused.

They objected to the non-agricultural use, meaning a loss in Grade 2 agricultural land, and said substantial sustainability benefits had not been demonstrated to justify that loss.

They also said the proposal seeks to regularise visitor accommodation in an unsustainable location, where users would be car dependent, and had concern about light spill in an otherwise largely undeveloped and dark hillside.