A DECISION to reject a plan for a glamping site at a field housing alpacas due to fears of “shenanigans” has been upheld on appeal.
The application for four shepherd huts and four bell tents along with a washroom and animal shelter in a field close to three residential homes in the countryside was rejected last year.
Councillors said they feared residents of one nearby home, Amberleigh House, could suffer increased noise from the proposed glamping site which could accommodate up to 28 people at any one time.
Councillor Dale Rooke said the tents would be too close to the neighbouring property at the proposed site, Swallow’s Nest field, at Parc Llettis Road in Hardwick just south of Abergavenny.
The Chepstow Labour member said: “Tents are naturally not soundproofed so any shenanigans going on inside will be heard in the wider vicinity.”
As a result Monmouthshire County Council’s planning committee, which also raised concerns at access to the site along a narrow country lane, refused planning permission despite the authority’s planning officers having recommended it be approved.
That decision has now been upheld after applicant Elizabeth Pengelly, of Cwtch Glamping Ltd, appealed to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales.
Independent inspector Lowri Hughson-Smith, who considered the appeal, backed the decision reached by councillors, although she didn’t share the concerns over highway safety on the rural lane.
Ms Hughson-Smith, who visited the site in March this year, said she had “concerns regarding the effect of the scale and nature of the proposed use on the living conditions of the occupants of Amberleigh House.”
Ms Pengelly claimed noise from the railway and a nearby airfield could be heard in the area but the inspector said she found it “generally benefits from a quiet and tranquil environment”.
She said holidaymakers would likely be active at different times of the day and including into the night during the summer. There would also be irregular pedestrian and vehicle movements, late arrivals and early departures, luggage handling, loading and unloading, opening and closing of car doors and raised voices which would “all occur in very close proximity to Amberleigh House and its outdoor amenity space”.
Ms Hughson-Smith said the parking area would be between the glamping field and Amberleigh House and said: “Given the scale of the use and low existing noise environment, I am not persuaded that the separation distance between the proposed accommodation and Amberleigh House would adequately address noise arising from the use itself.”
She also found there was a lack of evidence to support a claim existing and proposed boundary treatments and bushes would meaningfully reduce noise and said Ms Pengelly hadn’t shown how a proposed curfew could be implemented or enforced.
The inspector also said the council’s planning policies demand applicants show how noise pollution risks would be overcome and require all development maintain reasonable levels of amenity for occupiers of neighbouring properties.
