A CARAVAN storage building has been given approval at a farm site in Martinstown although objected to by neighbours and the parish council.

The Stevens Farm site already has several storage areas, approved in 2014 and 2018, with part of a former agricultural yard area in use for more than a year for storing caravans and motor homes in the open.

Dorset Council has now approved a new building for the storage of the leisure vehicles on that yard site although neighbours had complained that traffic to and from the site has become intolerable.

Said one Fishers Barn resident: “Not only do two gardening services use the road to access the farm to dump commercial waste, but the caravans often hit a neighbour’s tree in the way up and down. The road is not suitable for such a daily volume of traffic and is frequented by pedestrians and horse riders. There is no passing place for vehicles and the caravan owners often cause jams at the bottom of the lane which is unhelpful. The noise is irritating to residents.”

Dorset Council received ten letters from residents objecting to the changes on the site with Winterborne St Martin also lodging an official objection to the proposals –  telling Dorset Council that access to the site is a concern with poor sight lines along the main road in an easterly direction.

The parish council also expressed concerns for the eight properties at the bottom of the drive which have no footway on the grounds of added traffic danger and noise nuisance.

The Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty team said they considered that the proposal would “represent a relatively significant expansion to the permitted storage operations within a sensitive and isolated location.”

The new building will be a timber-framed agricultural-style structure to be sited on the eastern edge of the farmyard.

A planning case officer concluded that the site of the new building should not be used for more than ten vehicles, but said that subject to that condition there was nothing to justify a refusal of the application which would “foster the delivery of sustainable development in a positive and proactive manner…

“The landscape impacts of the proposal would be appropriately mitigated and the highways impacts would not be so severe as to justify refusing planning permission,” said the report.