FOUR new ‘rural style’ open market houses could be built on a farm on the Brendon Hills near Raleghs Cross.

Bill Norman, of Higher Beverton Farm, was last year given a special ‘class Q’ planning permission by Somerset Council to convert three barns into four homes.

Planning agent George Matthew, of Dorset Design Group, said Mr Norman wanted to develop agricultural buildings in his farmyard due to a ‘gradual winding down of the active farm’ which would eventually see their use become redundant.

Mr Matthew said the principle of housing development had been established with the ‘class Q’ consent given last October.

He said the proposal now was to demolish the barns and build four new detached homes each with garages and designed in ‘a traditional and sympathetic style’.

Mr Matthew said: “This will greatly improve the site, as well as the quality of the proposed dwellings.”

He said the ‘class Q’ route to a new-build plan had become ‘an established method’ for farmers to obtain permission for new houses in rural areas and had been used on numerous nearby sites in the past few years.

The proposal was for the new homes to be one-and-a-half storeys each with 3.5 bedrooms and a gross 1,776 sq ft of floor space, making them about 10 per cent larger than the properties approved under ‘class Q’, but in total more than four times smaller than the footprint of the barns.

The council wants any comments on the application to be sent to it by March 14 and has set itself a target of April 18 by which to take a decision on it.

It did not receive any representations when it carried out consultation on the ‘class Q’ application and nor were any comments submitted by Clatworthy parish councillors.