Rural housing development near Retford refused by the council over “harm” to listed buildings

Bassetlaw District Council has turned down the plans, submitted by applicant Peter Harrison, to build 24 properties on Main Street in Hayton.

The decision was made on Monday, December 30, over concerns about the “harmful” impact on neighbouring historical buildings and the encroachment into open countryside.

The site is on land including Church Farm in the small, rural village which sits four miles north-east of Retford.

The 1.3-hectare patch currently includes mid-20th Century farm buildings which are disused – but if the application was approved, these would have been removed.

Church Farm includes a Grade-II listed farmhouse and barn. Papers say their origins likely date back to the 16th or 17th Century, and they sit directly to the northeast of the application site.

While these buildings were not included in the plans’ boundary, they sit immediately next to the access to the site.

The Grade-I Church of St Peter, Grade-II War Memorial and Grade-II Old Vicarage are also nearby, with planning papers saying all of the buildings “form an integral part of the historic character of Hayton”.

A historic footpath also links Church Farm to the church.

Part of the council’s rejection fell with the proposals providing “insufficient information” as to how the development would impact the wider setting of the nearby listed buildings.

The council’s decision document considered the development “harmful” to these buildings, where it was not demonstrated how the homes could be built without causing harm.

The application site’s boundary included a parcel of land on the southwestern corner which begins forming part of open countryside and is not allocated for development.

Council papers said this would “encroach into the open countryside and would therefore fail to preserve the rural and open countryside setting of the Listed Buildings.”

The outline plans for the homes only included access to the site, meaning the design and layout of the homes were not given.

This meant that the view of St Peter’s Church from Main Street was not protected in the plans, which is against a policy in the Hayton Neighbourhood Plan.

In the decision statement, the council said: “The local planning authority working positively and proactively with the applicants would have afforded no opportunity to overcome these problems.”