CHANGES have been agreed for a Burton Bradstock holiday site as it prepares for the coming season.

Dorset Council has approved a planning request for the Graston Copse Holiday Park off Annings Lane which will see a reorganisation of the site, a new site road and parking spaces and changes to serviced pitches and caravan decking.

The site will also install a new surface water drainage attenuation pond with landscape planting and a species rich amenity meadow.

It will mean the overall loss of some pitches on the site but, in part, their replacement with larger units.

Site conditions, imposed in 1999, initially limited the park to one residential and 89 static holiday caravans but this was amended in 2016 to allow 90 units, throughout the year, comprising of holiday or residential caravans, or a combination of both.

The new consent allows for an extension of the static caravan site to relocate 15 pitches for lodge-style caravans, which will compensate in part for 49 pitches to be removed to allow the re-organisation of the existing caravan site layout which will then provide 39 double-width pitches.

This application is linked with a separate planning application which proposes to relocate some of these ‘lost’ pitches on an extension to Larkfield Holiday Park, Burton Bradstock, also owned by the applicants.

Six nearby residents objected to the changes - their comments referring to disruption in Annings Lane and Shipton Lane from the movement of caravans and lodges; the benefits of less units on the site being offset by more on the Larkfield site; harm to the special character of Burton Bradstock; light pollution and increased pedestrians and holiday traffic.

Dorset Council planning officers said that the principle of the changes is acceptable with long-term gains in improving the quality of the accommodation. Its landscape officer said the changes were unlikely to harm the special qualities or natural beauty of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and would present “a marked improvement” on the overall site layout.

Highways officers did not object to the changes, saying they were likely to result in less traffic movements. They sayt that moving caravans and lodges is outside the scope of planning although suggested there should be a construction and environmental management plan put in place to smooth the changes as they take place.