[Councillor Wright and Councillor Heijltjes outside the Bailbrook site]
I, too, was disappointed to hear about the planning decision regarding the massive house being built on the old nursery site in Bailbrook Lane.
Despite 80 objections, planning permission for a variation of a previously approved proposal, which came under enforcement after it was found to have exceeded conditions, was approved at the Council’s Planning Committee on 28 October.
Councillor Saskia Heijltjes for Lambridge ward said,
“Residents were promised a modest home, stepped into the hillside of Little Solsbury Hill. They have watched something far bigger go up. The 2021 permission was for a modest, stepped, five-bedroom home, designed to sit low in this sensitive setting. Why recommend approval for a house that is higher, larger in every direction, and now has seven bedrooms? That contradicts the very basis on which permission was granted.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council officers recommended that the planning be approved and it was with two votes against.
Councillor Saskia Heijltjes gave a statement during the Planning Committee meeting asking that the planning permission be refused for the following reasons:
- for harm to the setting of the listed church and the conservation area, contrary to HE1 and Section 66;
- for scale and massing out of keeping with this semi-rural lane, contrary to D2 and D5;
- for harm to neighbours’ amenity, contrary to D6;
- and because the information is inconsistent and insufficient to determine the application, including on bats under NE3.
Councillor Heijltjes urged that the committee refuse the planning permission,
“Refusal would leave the Council free to require the building to come back down to the height that was approved.”
Councillor Joanna Wright from Lambridge ward, who could not attend the meeting but also objected, said,
“Clearly the committee recognised that the developer had used the system to their advantage yet still gave permission. This is unfair and shows why so many residents think planning is a game”
