CAMPAIGNERS wept with joy at news that controversial housing proposals near Watchet were likely to be rejected.

Somerset West and Taunton Council (SWT) planning committee is being recommended to refuse plans for 136 homes to be built on 14 acres of agricultural land at Cleeve Hill.

The committee will decide the application on January 5, when dozens of objectors are expected to attend to witness what they hope will be the end of the scheme.

Sam Westmacott, who has helped lead opposition to the plans, said some local residents whose lifestyles had been under threat were literally in tears when they heard.

Ms Westmacott said: “What a great Christmas present.”

She said there was unlikely to be an appeal once the committee turned it down because the reasons for refusal were so strong.

SWT major projects officer Simon Fox in his committee report quoted nine reasons for his recommendation of refusal.

Mr Fox said the proposed scheme did not provide for the required 35 per cent of the homes to be ‘affordable’, realignment of the B3191 involved unstable clifftop land which needed coastal defence work to safeguard it, the historic landscape character of the area was not respected, there was a lack of evidence that the site could accommodate so many homes or that it could be suitably drained, and the need to minimise carbon emissions had not been met.

Nearly 500 local objections were received by the council as well as ‘serious objections’ with detailed reasons from Watchet Town Council.

The application was processed by SWT despite the identity of the people behind the plans remaining a secret.

A previous application by an unnamed applicant was refused in August, 2020, and the current plans were submitted in April, 2021, by an applicant named only as ‘Cleeve Hill Development’, operating through planning agent Martin Lee, of Hemyock.

A company named Cleeve Hill Developments Ltd was registered with an address in Manchester in 2018 but was dissolved in February, 2019.