PLANS for an exclusive gated housing development within an existing estate in Minehead have been put forward.

Colin Howells has proposed building five detached houses in the 1.6-acre grounds of Cherry Trees,

Planning agent Jonathan Scanlan, of Reed Holland Associates, said Cherry Trees was ‘curiously related’ to every other property in King Edward Road which it predated as well as the houses which had been built in the surrounding roads of King George Road and Ponsford Road.

Mr Scanlan said the large garden had over the years been used as an ornamental garden, an orchard, and a donkey paddock, and was now ‘disused, dilapidated, and somewhat forgotten’.

He said the property was ‘very rudimentary inside’ and was previously occupied by an elderly resident who ‘did not prioritise the adoption of what we regard today a necessity for modern living’.

It was not of any architectural merit and consequently there would not be any issues with its loss.

The design of the five new five-bedroom dwellings was deliberately in keeping with the mainly 1930s to 1940s architecture of King Edward Road, Ponsford Road, and King George Road.

Mr Scanlan believed the design of homes in the surrounding streets had been inspired by the first garden town of Letchworth Garden City, built in 1903 in Hertfordshire.

He said the private development had been scaled down from an original proposal to put six houses on the land.

Designs had been explored for between three and nine properties on what was a ‘large and very unusual landlocked site’ before settling on five homes.

Mr Scanlan said the layout of the private estate was influenced by the Taunton Garden Town design guidance.

He said: “These proposals seek to establish a development with its own unique sense of place, with generous plots, providing an attractive and desirable place for people to live while being a sympathetic neighbour.”