AN APPEAL has been lodged over West Devon Borough Council’s refusal of planning permission for a terrace of three houses near Exbourne as ‘an incongruous and overbearing urban addition’ to the landscape.

Ben Blackman of Fog Developments is appealing to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate to build three homes north of Town Living Cross north of the village (0332/22/FUL).

WDBC’s head of development management practice Patrick Whymer, turning down the application last September, said the development ‘would fail to achieve a good quality sense of place and character of repect the scenic quality of the site or reinforce local distinctiveness as the design would result in an incongruous and overbearing urban addition’ in its rural location. It said that there was also a ‘threat’ to a mature tree within the site.

However planning consultants XL Planning, acting for the applicants, said that revised plans had been submitted as a result of negotiations with council officers, in which the plans were revised to take on board their concerns, including adding hipped roofs and altering materials on the outside of the buiding to slate hanging tiles as well as reorientaing the homes.

‘It is the appellant’s case that the council have not acted reasonably in respect of these issues and has given them undue weight in [an] attempt [to] obstruct the appellant from gaining planning permission,’ said XL Planning in a statement.