A developer has appealed the refusal of planning permission for new homes in Bourne End in a woodland where trees were ‘massacred’.

MMDM Developments has asked the Planning Inspectorate to reconsider its plans to build three bungalows at Fieldhead Gardens.

Buckinghamshire Council refused to grant the firm permission to build the new properties in November last year.

Planning officers’ notice of refusal claimed that MMDM’s plans would result in the ‘partial loss and fragmentation of woodland’ and were ‘likely to place future pressures on protected trees’.

MMDM has now appealed against the refusal of its plans, which followed the council’s refusal of two previous similar proposals for new bungalows at Fieldhead Gardens in 2019 and 2022.

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Members of the public have until August 26 (Monday) at the latest to make representations to the Planning Inspectorate about the application using appeal reference APP/K0425/W/24/3345099 on its website.

MMDM has filed a 228-page submission with the Inspectorate containing a strongly worded report by its agent, the architect Barrie Stanley.

In his opening remarks, he accused council’s planning officers of embarking on ‘yet another wild-goose-chase’, which had resulted in a ‘completely flawed assessment of the application’, as well as ‘much further unnecessary complication and waste’.

He later adds: “The prevarication and obstructionism, with which the council have dealt with this site to date, is only matched now by a fog of obfuscation and confusion contained in the latest officer report, generated in order to create as much complication as possible, on a matter that is very simple.”

Mr Stanley claims that he and MMDM recognise that the woodland is a ‘hugely important asset’ to nearby residents and that the ‘primary focus’ has been to ‘preserve the character of the woodland’.

However, a string of residents have raised concerns about the number of trees that have already been felled on the application site.

One neighbour who witnessed men cutting trees down with chainsaws last year said she had even been unable to sleep due to the noise of trees being cut down.

She said: “A general observation noted by many residents was that contractors conducted a full-blown cowboy chainsaw massacre and actually whooped with joy as mature trees slammed to the earth, then entire trunks of dragged with chains across the ground, destroying wildlife habitats.”

Last year, council planning officers also highlighted the removal of trees as an issue and cited this as the main reason for their refusal to grant MMDM planning permission.

In their refusal notice, they wrote: “Given the scale of development proposed, it is considered that this proposal would result in both the loss and fragmentation of the protected green space.”

However, Mr Stanley has hit back at this claim in his appeal submission, calling it ‘persistent and contradictory’, and claiming that the council had provided ‘false and misleading information’ to planning inspectors.

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