Developers ordered to knock down three half-built houses near Swindon

A couple behind a small housing scheme have been ordered to knock down a set of half-built houses near Swindon.

Nigel and Sharon King, the developers behind the properties just south of Highworth, have been told to knock down three of the homes.

They were in the process of turning farm buildings in Eastrop Farm on Shrivenham Road into eight houses.

Three are conversions of older barns, three are conversions of modern farm buildings and two are renovated workers’ cottages.

But Mr and Mrs King failed to get permission to keep and complete them last week.

Mr King said previous discussions with enforcement officers had led him to believe they did not want the buildings - which are not far off completion - to be knocked down.

The issue is that Swindon Council planners say the demolition of the barns, with parts of them re-used in the new houses, was never given consent.

The say the Kings were given prior consent to convert the modern barns into houses. But demolishing them means the new buildings, even if they use some of the original materials, are not conversions but new buildings.

According to the council’s planning department, the couple never applied to put up new buildings and therefore the three houses do not have any planning permission at all.

Mr and Mrs King say the barns were in such poor condition they could not just be converted in situ, but that much of the original material has been used. 

Another factor put to members of the planning committee as a reason to refuse the permission to keep the three buildings is that would be out of keeping with the rural nature of the site, surrounded by farmers’ fields.

That has bemused not only Mr and Mrs King but also many residents and Highworth Town Council. They say the permission granted for a 250-home estate on the same fields, just 100 metre away from the Kings’ site means the impact of eight houses on the local landscape would be negligible.

Mr and Mrs King can appeal against the decision to refuse them consent or are able to put in a new full application for permission for the three buildings in question.

Article credit: Aled Thomas, The Local Democracy Reporting Service