PLANS to build 30 homes in Eastington have been approved on appeal after Stroud District Council’s development control committee unanimously refused the application.

The application by Bathurst Ltd proposed the building of 30 new homes adjacent to Swallowcroft residential estate in Eastington which also included an access road and two parking spaces for each dwelling.

Planning officers received 60 letters of public objection based on the lack of parking, loss of privacy, flooding and lack of local facilities and amenities in place to deal with 30 more families. No letters of support were received.

SDC’s development control committee refused the proposal in May last year because the proposed dwellings would be built in an area not intended for general development as defined in the Stroud District Local Plan and because they believed it would fundamentally spoil the setting of the village and the landscape.

However, before the hearing the district council wrote to the planning inspector to state that they no longer wished to defend the first reason for refusal relating to the local plan.

In relation to the second reason for refusal the inspector concluded that ‘while the proposed development would clearly change the character and appearance of the site itself, it would not harm the wider countryside beyond or the landscape setting of Eastington’.

The inspector agreed to overturn the council’s decision but also imposed 11 planning conditions on the developers in relation to time, landscape and car parking spaces.

Bathurst Ltd now have three years to begin work on the site.