"This proposal would result in considerable harm to the area"

A decade-long bid to build housing on a south Haslemere estate shows no sign of ending as plans for 14 homes have been thrown out by an inspector.

Monkhill Ltd and Transform Housing have been forced back to the drawing board once again as they’ve lost an appeal to develop land on the Longdene Estate.

Waverley Borough Council rejected plans to build eight “affordable” homes and six self-build properties on the 1.53 hectare site off Hedgehog Lane early this year.

But the decision wasn’t clear-cut as the application received more letters of support than opposition, while Haslemere Town Council raised no objection amid the need for affordable housing in town.

“In Haslemere there is no land available which is either not national landscape or protected green belt,” stated a councillor at the earlier WBC meeting.

“If we are not to build on national landscape land then where are we to provide housing?

Planning Inspector Dring also acknowledged in his report that sufficient provision for affordable housing would be secured, while the six plots would provide a “modest” but important contribution to the borough’s self-build aspirations.

But there were concerns over “substantial” size of those very plots and whether or the social housing, which would be “shoehorned” into a corner of the triangular site, would be genuinely affordable.

And those concerns, coupled with worries over setting precedents and the position of the site within the Surrey Hills National Landscape, ultimately led WBC Planning Committee members to refuse.

The site has been subject to numerous applications over the last decade with the latest being a dismissed appeal for 16 houses in 2023.

While the number of houses proposed for the “well-screened site” has been slightly reduced since, the decision remains the same with Inspector Dring saying development would “urbanise” the site and permanently erode the open countryside in the area.

He stated: “The proposal would result in considerable harm to the landscape character of the area.

“The urbanisation proposed would lead to the substantial erosion of the site’s rural character, which in turn would result in considerable harm to landscape character.”

He continued: “The proposal would harmfully diminish the network of open fields and interrupt the established rural landscape pattern, eroding the countryside setting of the development around Longdene House and at the edge of the settlement.

“Whilst the visual effects would remain localised, the impact on landscape character would be appreciably greater.”