A RARE site visit is to be held to look at a plot for five homes off a site off East Street, Beaminster.

Dorset Council’s area planning committee voted online on Thursday for the visit after two hours of discussion mainly around highway safety, but also fears of overlooking and drainage.

The homes, in two terraces, are proposed using an existing access to 82 East Street, a bungalow which would be demolished as part of the proposals.

The site itself, described variously as a pasture or a green field, runs behind existing houses between 60 and 90 East Street with Nos 54/56 forming the other corner of the plot.

A petition and more than forty comments had been lodged opposing the plans together with several individual letters and objections also from the town council.

Area planning committee members were told on Thursday that in the view of planning officers the application did not cause ‘substantial harm’ although it is outside the defined development boundary. Highway officer took a similar view on the proposed access into the narrow road, which has no pavement. The access would be widened to 7.5 metres as part of the process, if approved.

Plans for the three 3-bed home and two 4-beds homes have been changed since first lodged with the council with the two blocks moved further away from neighbouring homes and some house end walls designed with no windows, or small windows, to avoid overlooking.

A petition signed by residents in East Street, Woodswater and Hollymoor Lane said they oppose the scheme because of the ‘obvious and apparent danger’ of the narrow road and restricted entrance to the site; the added risk to pedestrians in East Street where there is no footpath and the extra burden on what the petition describes as a ‘dated’ sewage system.

Letters also said that the site was higher than some homes in East Street which would result in overlooking and that the 14 car parking spaces, including two garages, would lead to unacceptable levels of additional traffic.

Said one of the residents letters: “Please refuse this application for the good of the many” with another also asking for a rejection “to save lives.”

Several letters told the committee that cars would have to swing out onto the opposite side of the road to safely access the site, putting themselves and other road users at risk.

Local councillor Rebecca Knox said the site was on clay and claimed that the proposed measures would not be adequate to take excess water away. She was also unhappy that the site was being compared to one on Portland which, she said, had very few similarities with the Beaminster site.

Councillors decided that they needed to see the site for themselves and voted unanimously for a site visit which will need to comply with social distancing rules. It will be the only planning site visit held by the council in more than six months.