Opposition to plans for five homes off a site in East Street, Beaminster has not resulted in a council recommendation to reject the scheme.

A petition and more than forty comments have been lodged over plans to demolish a bungalow at 82 East Street, Beaminster to make way for the new homes.

But when Dorset Council’s area planning committee meets today they will be recommended to approve the application.

A report says that the area’s lack of a five-year housing supply and no ‘significant’ harm to the area have contributed to the proposal. The report also says that the use of the site is sustainable despite being outside the defined development boundary for the area and has not attracted a highway objection despite neighbour’s concerns about the access.

Three 3-bed home and two 4-beds homes are being requested for the site off the narrow road which has no pavement.

The application has been amended in an attempt to overcome issues of overlooking and the size and scale of the buildings. One of the block of three homes has been moved across the site in response to the concerns and other homes moved away from the boundary.

A report to the planning committee says: “The proposed properties are to be rendered with natural stone quoins and lintels, in limestone or ham stone, to reflect the materials used in the surrounding properties. The windows are to have white frames with front doors with a wood effect to reflect the local area and create the cottage feel to the properties.”

It also says that a landscaping plan will be produced to further soften the effect of the new homes, if approved.

Beaminster Town Council has recommend refusal on the grounds that the site is outside the Defined Development Boundary and that the proposals do not include any affordable housing.

The town council say the development will also generate extra traffic and pedestrian movements along East Street, a street that is narrow in places and with no footway, which they say was highlighted in a refusal of a previous application in 2015.

A petition signed by more than 20 residents in East Street, Woodswater and Hollymoor Lane says they oppose the scheme because of the ‘obvious and apparent danger’ of the narrow road and restricted entrance to the site; the added risk to pedestrians in East Street where there is no footpath and the extra burden on what the petition describes as a ‘dated’ sewage system.

Dorset Highways say that, having looked at accident figures for the area, and the proposal for a four-home increase on the site they could not justify an objection to the scheme which would be sustainable if taken to appeal.