Twm Owen – Local democracy reporter
A family that faced “losing everything” just a month ago when their plan to restore a 200-year-old farmhouse were rejected have seen the decision overturned.
Mike Wells and his wife were facing a massive financial loss when councillors agreed with planning officers in November the project to bring the remote farmhouse back into use had become a new development, and as such couldn’t be allowed in the countryside.
That risked the couple being left with a half completed building project on a mountainside at Earlswood near Shirenewton, west of Chepstow, which they had planned to make their home, as well as likely having to face the cost of dismantling the building work and restoring the land.
Recommendation
The decision to refuse them planning permission was only taken on the casting vote of the committee chairman after councillors were split on whether the application should be rejected in line with the recommendation from officers.
But in a highly unusual move the decision had to come back to Monmouthshire council’s planning committee’s December 3 meeting due to a “procedural irregularity” a month earlier.
Committee chairman Councillor Phil Murphy said a councillor who had been attending the meeting via video link had disappeared off screen for a short period.
He told the December meeting: “I want to remind everybody you must stay on screen, in shot on camera, with the computer on at all times.
“It’s a technicality last time one member disappeared off screen for a short period of time and we didn’t pick it up at the time and as a result the matter has had to come back to us.”
Risk
Agent Geraint John, representing the Wells family, repeated what he told the committee in November and said: “They are a young family who’ve seen their aspirations for a family home, and life savings, put at huge risk as a result of unforeseen circumstances and the seemingly uncompromising planning process.”
He said planning officers had been wrong to tell councillors they needed to base an approval on a planning policy. He said they could grant permission on “one or more material planning considerations”.
He said Mr Wells has offered to restore the land and make a contribution towards affordable housing, which one councillor said would be worth around £30,000.
Collapse
Mr John said benefits included the restoration of the 200-year-old farmhouse and he said officers had since withdrawn the impact on landscape as a reason for refusal and accepted there hadn’t been a deliberate collapse of the property or breach of planning permission, for restoration, granted in 2018.
But planning officer Amy Longford, who called the offer of an affordable housing contribution as “admirable and lovely”, said benefits did not “outweigh” the long standing policy against new homes in the open countryside.
She said: “Technically it is a new. The existing building is no longer standing.”
She cautioned councillors Welsh planning policy warns allowing single houses in the countryside can undermine the protection intended.
Croesonnen councillor Su McConnell, who in November voted for refusal but said she hoped an appeal would be successful, said: “I’m still scratching my head about it.”
She said she was “nervous” about allowing a home in the countryside.
Following a vote the recommendation for refusal was rejected by eight votes to seven. Chepstow member Sue Riley, who had abstained in November, voted against refusing the application.
A report with the committee’s reasons for approving the application will now have to come before its January meeting.
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