AN APPLICATION seeking permission in principle for five new houses on the outskirts of Pensilva has been refused.

The owner of the Fern Lodge Boarding Kennels and Cattery, C Pringle, had made the application to remove all existing buildings at the site on Golberdon Road, and to build one detached house and two lots of two semi-detached houses.

The application states that the kennels has always struggled financially.

With a shop, school, pub and health centre, Pensilva meets the requirements of a sustainable location, states the application, and the site would be suitable to be placed on the brownfield register.

Traffic to and from the site would be substantially reduced, says the applicant, with the change from the current commercial use to residential.

Pre-application advice issued in 2020 suggested that rural workshops might be a more favourable use of the location. The applicant says that great consideration had been given to this option, but that such a scheme would not generate enough value to replace the kennels and cattery and houses already on the site.

Moreover, there were already vacancies at nearby industrial units.

In a refusal notice, planning officer Tracy Young states that there had been one letter of objection to the proposal.

The report states both that St Ive Parish Council had made no comment on the plan, and that the Parish Council had objected to it.

The request for permission in principle was rejected on the following grounds: firstly, that the site lies within the zones of influence for the Plymouth Sound and Estuaries Special Area of Conservation, and development would be against the Cornwall Local Plan as it could give rise to adverse effects on the Special Area of Conservation.

Secondly, that the proposal would represent an “undesirable incursion into open countryside beyond the built form of the settlement of Pensilva”. The site is not allocated for residential development in an emerging Neighbourhood Plan, and does not represent infill, rounding off, or building on previously developed land adjoining or within a settlement, and would be unsustainable in transport terms, says the planning officer.