Plans to demolish a home in Chorleywood and replace it with a larger property have been refused planning permission for a second time.

The demolition and rebuilding of a house in Solesbridge Lane in Chorleywood will not be able to proceed after Three Rivers District Council refused planning permission on Thursday, January 11.

Currently, the isolated site close to the M25 is home to a detached house and shed covering just over 156 square metres. The applicant was seeking permission to demolish this and build a new, larger property covering just under 186 square metres.

According to the applicant, who lives at the property, their home is prone to damp and condensation and is very expensive to heat. They argue that it is of a "very poor" standard for family accommodation.

The first application, submitted in July 2023, ran into difficulties due to the property's location within the Green Belt and the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Planning officers, who raised no objection to the principle of demolition, deemed the larger building to be an "inappropriate development" that would be "harmful to the Green Belt".

They also raised concerns that the design of the new building would "fail to conserve or enhance the special landscape character and distinctiveness of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty".

READ MORE

The applicant then made a second, amended application. They argued that the property is in a secluded location where it is hardly visible, and that the nearby M25 had a "devastating" impact on the beauty of the immediate surrounding area.

They also made changes to the orientation and design features of the proposed rebuild based on comments in the initial refusal, and suggested that the new property would be a significantly more sustainable building than the current one.

However, none of these changes were enough to persuade planning officers that the application should be granted planning permission, as they made their decision last week.

The reasons for the second refusal have not yet been published.