A plan to build five new homes in a seaside village has been refused by councillors, after a resident claimed it represented a ‘Putinist’ attempt to encroach on the countryside.
The project would have seen the removal of a large metal building at Eastgate Barns in Holme-next-the-Sea, near Hunstanton.
In its place would have gone four three-bedroom two-storey homes and one two-bedroom bungalow.
But a number of residents, along with the parish council, objected to the scheme, arguing that it went against the community’s neighbourhood plan - a document outlining how the village should develop over the coming years.
One resident, John Hulme, told a Monday planning committee meeting that he and his wife had moved to the village to improve their mental and physical health.
He said their health was now at risk again, due to the anxiety caused by “developers riding roughshod over adopted planning policy, threatening the ethos and character of the village”.
He pointed out that the developer was proposing to build beyond the plot of land allocated for new homes in the neighbourhood plan.
“I see this as Putinism. The architect at our village meeting last December admitted that he’d made an error on the boundary, but he has chosen not to correct this,” Mr Hulme claimed.
He added that the planning application reflected “greed, not need”.
Parish councillor Lynn Devereaux said the community wants to see “some modest homes in our village, so that some ordinary people can come and live in Holme, and help restore the social balance.
“We don’t need houses of the size being proposed here and the lavish specifications that accompany them.”
Jason Law, the applicant’s agent, rebuffed these criticisms, saying: “These are sensibly produced houses.
“We’ve done the research, we’ve employed professionals in housing - not planning, not developer gains.”
He argued that the homes were an appropriate size for growing families in Holme and had sufficient space for people living in a rural area.
Conservative councillor Colin Sampson said that while he liked the look of the development, the neighbourhood plan had to be respected: “If it [the neighbourhood plan] means anything, we have got to go with it.
"Anywhere else, any other time, I would have said ‘Yes, let’s do it.’”
Some 13 councillors voted to reject the scheme with five people abstaining.
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