Plans for a car port and garage on the edge of an Isle of Wight village, denounced as ‘unacceptable creeping development’, have been rejected following a local backlash.
Natasha Moore’s application was turned down by County Hall planners this week on the grounds that it would have a ‘serious adverse impact’ on the character of the St Catherine’s Cottages, Blackgang Road site in Niton, the surrounding area and the Isle of Wight National Landscape (IWNL).
Mrs Moore’s proposed structure included a weathered light grey timber frame, a ‘natural slate roof’ to match the existing property, solar panels on and in the garage’s roof, a black rainwater drainage system and weathered grey ‘natural timber cladding’, according to her agent, ERMC Ltd.
Niton and Whitwell Parish Council, the IWNL and a neighbour opposite lodged objections before Christmas.
A council report explaining the refusal said:
“The proposed garage and car port due to its position, size, design and appearance, would result in a visually intrusive, dominant and prominent addition within the site which would have a serious adverse impact on, and would fail to conserve or enhance, the character of the site and surrounding area and Isle of Wight National Landscape (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).”
Blackgang Road resident Carolyn Rayner said:
“This is a form of unacceptable creeping development, and as such is completely out of keeping with the rural environment of Niton, given its location in an area of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.”
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A spokesperson for Niton and Whitwell Parish Council said:
“Whilst we have no objection to people wishing to have a car port or storage area, we feel it must be in keeping to the surrounding area, especially in the Isle of Wight National Landscape.
“They are quite imposing, especially from the road and totally out of character to the existing buildings.
“We would also be concerned with any additional light pollution.”
Highways service provider Island Roads made no objection to the application but recommended a condition be attached that the development is used only for private vehicle parking or domestic storage.
Another case of ‘Not In My Back Yard’
So the council are also stopping clean energy but they let 100s of cardboard houses to be thrown up on land that shouldn’t be used for housing that are very unsightly and spoil the whole of the island???
Yet how many things are being done on the island
that go unnoticed!.
Should houses have been built there in the first place there used to be a village plan which had a boundary any application outside the plan was recommended refusal its a village we don’t want it to become a town
‘visually intrusive’
‘would fail to conserve or enhance, the character of the site and surrounding area’
‘completely out of keeping with the rural environment of Niton’
‘We would also be concerned with any additional light pollution’
Which is odd considering there’s other housing, never mind just a car port or garage, planned for Niton. Only in June last year, Echo was reporting that ‘plans show around 35 new homes’.
And, isn’t Bramble Drive, a road of all newly built homes, in Niton?
It seems ludicrous to refuse permission for a car port and/or garage when the Council itself is approving whole roads of new housing and looking at approval for an estate of 35 houses. Surely the same reasons for refusing one application in a village must also apply equally to all applications?