Plan to turn agricultural barn into homes rejected

Butchers Farm on Wisbech Road, Thorney, has six months to appeal against the refusal of its development plans

A plan to convert an agricultural barn into five houses has been refused permission over fears of traffic congestion on a narrow country road.

The application was submitted to Peterborough City Council on behalf of Butchers Farm in Thorney to convert the barn into one large and four small homes. It also proposed parking spaces for up to 12 cars.

The site, which has a 200m access road, is currently agricultural and is in flood zone 3, which means there is a high risk of flooding.

Rejecting the plan this week, the authority said the extra homes could cause “unacceptable” traffic on a narrow access road.

According to the design statement from Swann Edwards Architecture, the four small houses would be about 100sq m and the large house would be 465sq m.

The flood risk assessment for the application said there was no historic evidence of flooding at the site, but it said increased rain due to climate change could have an impact.

The design statement also stated that the site on Wisbech Road was not a trunk road and would not increase traffic to the extent that it would cause safety issues.

But National Highways raised concerns over parking, the turning space for cars and bin collections.

Refusing the application, the planning authority said: “It demonstrates insufficient evidence there would be no transport and highway impacts of the development.

“Given the substandard nature of the access track from Wisbech Road, vehicles would have to queue and block the public highway at the access if vehicles are accessing the site at any one time.”