PLANS to build a chalet-style bungalow on a poultry farm are to be debated next week, despite it being “harmful to the Green Belt”.
Mr Challen seeks to build a new three-bed home for his family at Challen’s Chicks (farm), on Marsh Lane, in Taplow.
The new build is to help maintain the farm which is largely centred around laying hens and egg sales, which the applicant claims is a “viable” business.
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Permission for a mobile home for a period of three years in connection with the farm’s hen laying enterprise was granted in 2018.
COUNCIL: 'The applicant has demonstrated very special circumstances sufficient to outweigh the harm'
At the time it was considered there was “an essential need” for a full-time worker to live on site “to meet the welfare requirements of the poultry”. Expansion of the farm to incorporate quail has also been established in a recent appeal.
That need remains and a new, permanent home is “justified” despite it being an “inappropriate development in the Green Belt”, according to council documents.
“The applicant has demonstrated very special circumstances sufficient to outweigh the harm,” a council officer wrote.
However, its location, beyond the edge of the settlement, is “harmful to the Green Belt”, they added.
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Natural England are concerned about its impact on the Burnham Beeches Special Area of Conservation. Mitigation measures by way of financial contribution are necessary.
Cllr George Sandy called in the application.
Taplow Parish Council is urging its refusal, adding: “It may well be true that an industrial scale chicken enterprise and a quail barn might need on-site residential accommodation but that is not a justification. Residential development in the Green Belt is, by definition, harmful.”
Five neighbours have also objected.
The matter is due for debate during a South Buckinghamshire Area Planning Committee, on Tuesday, February 16.
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