by Trevor Bevins, Local Democracy Reporter.
An appeal has started over Dorset Council’s refusal to allow a combined home and workshop on the edge of a Dorchester industrial estate.
The council decided the combined unit in a corner of the Casterbridge Estate, off London Road, was an ‘unsuitable use’ for the site and should be kept only for business purposes.
The plans had been submitted by The Hand Made Kitchen Company, showing a two-storey building – the ground floor with a woodworking/joiners shop alongside a small kitchen and dining area, with the upper floor made up of a bedroom and lounge.
Despite the plea of one councillor to be more open-minded about the concept of places where people can live and work Dorchester town councillors voted by a majority to object to the planning application – a view then upheld by Dorset Council who formally rejected the plan.
Town councillors said that the site is unsuitable, backing onto the Swanbridge mobile home park, down a poorly surfaced industrial estate road, littered with rubbish and old vehicles, and that the land should be kept only for business use.
Town Cllr Fiona Kent-Ledger was a lone voice in supporting the proposal, which she described as ‘innovative’. She said a neighbour objection that they would be over-looked by the development was nonsense because there was a belt of trees in between.
The proposal shows the wooden framed home and workspace clad in black-painted larch with an aluminium composite sheet roof.
A noise assessment for the site concluded that road traffic is the dominant sound source and that the development would comply with national noise standards and was unlikely to be a nuisance to neighbours with the sounds likely to be generated by a small workshop.
Related item: Live-Work home in Dorchester rejected
