FERNHURST residents objecting to proposals to build 10 houses at Hogs Hill Farm have protested it would st an “extremely damaging precedent”.

A group of 16 villagers turned out for Fernhurst Parsh Council’s planning committee this month to voice their concerns about the pre-application.

The deadline for responses to South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA) is Wednesday, August 29.

Urging SDNPA to support the proposal, the applicant Adam Smith said the two developments of five houses would each include an affordable home. One plot on garden land would comprise on detached four-bed house, one detached three-bed house and a terrace of three two-bed dwellings.

The other plot on ‘vacant land’ would comprise five, two storey almshouse-style dwellings, four, three-bed and one, two-bed, centred around an internal courtyard.

At the meeting, objectors described the proposal as violating most if not all of the planning policies, adopted and draft, governing development within the parish and the South Downs National Park.

The parish council agreed to support their objections in its response to the SDNPA.

Parish councillor Graeme Williamson, who chaired the meeting, told The Herald: “The parish council’s main concern was that, because the site subject to this pre-application enquiry is both outside the agreed settlement area, and is not an agreed site for future development, as defined in both the Fernhurst Neighbourhood Plan and the proposed SDNPA plan, an extremely damaging precedent could be set if this proposal was allowed.”

The Fernhurst Society has also responded to object. Chairman Judith Turner wrote to say the committee was ‘unanimously horrified’ as the sites were outside village settlement, noting a housing plot at Comer Homes on the former Syngenta site was still waiting to be developed.