Green belt homes plan thrown out

The plans centred on a haulage yard not far from Oakwell Hall at Birstall, a popular visitor attraction, and also near three fine mansion-like stone homes, including Oakwell Cottage and Oakwell House.

An outline planning application was rejected by Kirklees Council last year and now an inspector with the Planning Inspectorate has dismissed an appeal by the applicant Brian Mortimer.

Inspector David Cullingford described the proposed development site as a piece of land "strewn with a cacophony of caravans, lorries, HGV tractors, trailers, bits of equipment and mounds of waste material".

His report adds: "In the midst of this muddle and mess there is a large prefabricated and rendered structure used as a workshop and office in connection with the haulage business."

Added to the workshop are around 30 stables offering livery facilities.

The plans envisage a crescent of nine homes across much of the site, served by a new cul-de-sac from Nutter Lane. Each home would have four or five bedrooms, large gardens and double garages.

The scheme would have rid the site of the existing buildings associated with the haulage business and livery operations and "all the paraphernalia" at the site, said the inspector's report.

The applicant's case, says the report, is that the removal of the "unsightly mess" would justify building on the green belt.

The applicant argued that the scheme would increase the openness of the green belt by replacing the current "harmful, unauthorised" use with a more benign use.

But this argument is dismissed by Mr Cullingford.

He said: "The large dwellings proposed would not only intrude into the openness of the green belt by extending across almost the entire length of the site, but also they would constitute a grotesquely incongruous form of development unrelated to any settlement of feature evidence in the vicinity. That would be apparent from all the vantage points from which the appeal site can now be seen."

He said that the scheme would be "hugely wasteful" of the land in question.

"At roughly 5.5 dwellings per hectare, the scheme would be hugely wasteful and fail to make efficient use of the land. In my view, the scheme would be hugely damaging..."

Mr Cullingford said he appreciated that replacement of an unsightly use could sometimes constitute very special circumstances for allowing development.

But he said in this case the nine homes would cause more damage to the landscape than the existing haulage business.

"In particular, I think that the benefits of removing the haulage business from the appeal site would be undermined by its replacement with development that would perpetrate even more damage.

"And, of course, justifying inappropriate development by the unsightly appearance of land could, all too easily, serve as a very damaging precedent in the context of green belt policy."

He accepted that the existing development at the site was not unlawful, as no enforcement action had been taken by Kirklees Council.

He concluded: "I agree with the planning officer that the proposed residential development would not represent the only means to ameliorate the visual impact of the site."