New homes at 'gateway' West Bay site despite objections

The site gained outline consent in April 2020 after an application, for five homes, was refused in 2019 when Dorset Council decided the proposal would be “unduly prominent, dominant and incongruous” and would be “harmful to the character and appearance of its surroundings.”

The now-approved details have seen the development scaled back with a series of changes made to meet criticisms.

Bridport Town Council objected to the new application on the triangle-shaped plot right at the edge of West Bay and to the previous applications.

It claimed the revised proposal for four homes would have an unacceptable adverse impact on the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and would be ‘prominently visible’ from the coastal footpath.

The Fairways site at West Bay

Town councillors also argued that the site is outside of the area’s defined development boundary where development would not normally be allowed and met none of the criteria for housing on the site as laid out in the Local Plan.

Other claims made by the town council include the belief that the road access could be unsafe.

Burton Bradstock parish council objected to the application on similar grounds.

Dorset Council has now agreed the details of the four homes. It says that new hedging and trees will enhance the site and the proposed materials and designs of the new homes, reduced from four-bed to three-bed, will create a varied street scene which is considered to be a “slight improvement” over the previously approved outline scheme and said it would not be harmful to the wider landscape or the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Highways officers had not objected to the accesses to each of the homes directly off Station Road.

Each of the new properties will have its own drive from the road with the homes cut into the slope of the hill with graded gardens to the rear featuring stone-faced retaining walls.