Plans to extend a Pembrokeshire caravan storage facility have been refused by the county council.
In an application through agent Gethin Beynon, Noel Richards sought permission to extend an existing caravan storage facility at Merrixton House Farm, near Stepaside.
A supporting statement accompanying the application said: “The application site adjoins an authorised storage facility for caravans and boats. The proposal seeks permission to extend the caravan storage facility to the north, which would cover a site area of 2,990 square metres. The extended site would be enclosed by a Pembrokeshire hedge bank and have a compacted hardcore material finish.”
It added: “The main purpose of the extended storage facility is to improve vehicle movements around the existing storage facility and reduce the congested nature of the existing storage site arrangement. No members of the public visit the storage facility as for safety and insurance purposes, the owners of the storage facility provide a collection and store service. The extension of the storage facility would add to the efficiency of the operation and diversification of the existing rural enterprise to secure and create additional employment.”
It went on to say: “It is also worth noting that the storage compound is owner managed for safety and security purposes where they park and collect caravans for storage purposes from the locality. The development would therefore not result in an influx of visitor vehicular numbers and movements in and around the storage compound would be owner operated.”
Amroth Community Council was ‘minded to object,’ saying: “Councillors are unable to understand why such a large extension is needed if the number of vans/boats stored is not necessarily to increase.
“There is also concern that the field identified in the application for the extension is at a higher elevation and so vans may be more visible from the National Park and immediate locality.”
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park has said the scheme “has the potential for adverse landscape and visual impacts on the National Park landscape”.
The council’s highways department recommended refusal on the grounds it “represents an unacceptable intensification of use of a substandard access road, in the absence of evidence to demonstrate that the impacts on highway safety can be adequately mitigated”.
The application was refused on the grounds it “would increase the visual clutter and decrease the positive contribution that the verdant farmland makes to the setting of the [adjoining] Park and Garden,” and, with access from “a narrow unclassified single-track road with the carriageway below the recommended standard for two-way flow,” there is insufficient information provided “in respect of existing and predicted trip generation, swept path analysis and mitigation measures to demonstrate that the impacts on highway safety can be mitigated from the intensification of the caravan storage facility”.
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