Campaigners have cautiously welcomed East Herts Council’s refusal of planning permission for a new home in Thorley Lane East Woods.
The Planning Consultancy Ltd, based in Buntingford, had proposed a ‘passive house’ with up to four bedrooms on part of the three-hectare (7.4-acre) site Green Belt site, promising the development would “provide funds to revitalise the woodland to make it a usable space for the surrounding community”.
While three people supported the scheme, hundreds of residents, the town council, Hertfordshire Ecology and the district’s landscape officer opposed the application which dubbed the site Rooks Wood.
The Friends of Southern County Park told the council: “Rook's Wood is very much older than Southern Country Park, much less disturbed by human intervention and provides a different habitat to that in the park.
“The proposed development would disrupt the wildlife corridor between Rook's Wood and Southern Country Park which allows movement between the two areas, enhancing the biodiversity of the park.”
The plan was the latest in a series of attempts to develop the woodland, which is protected by a blanket tree preservation order.
Since August 2022, the Thorley Lane East Woods Action Group, with more than 400 members, has been mobilising against successive bids to auction off the land to speculators.
The campaigners are heartened by their latest planning victory but steeling themselves to fight any appeal by the applicant.
One of the founders, Gill Gill, said she was thrilled by East Herts’ refusal, but she added: “I am not naive to believe this is the end of the story.”
Offers from the town council and residents to buy the site have been rejected and Gill urged the landowner: “Donate this woodland to the community and they will bring it back to life for the enjoyment of everyone.”
East Herts Council’s officers refused the application because it would encroach into the countryside and erode the rural qualities of the site” with a “visually intrusive” development.
The authority also panned the paperwork supporting the scheme, saying it lacked sufficient information about the impact on ecology, biodiversity and protected species on the site. It was similarly lacking, officers said, in evidence about the effect on protected trees.
Applications for a home and garage were also submitted in 1994 and 2002; both were refused by the planning authority and again at appeal.
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