AN OLD barn will be demolished at Greenwood Grange, Higher Bockhampton to make way for four holiday cottages.

An original application for 14 holiday homes had been reduced during the planning process after initial objections which claimed the larger number would be an overdevelopment and cause additional traffic problems for narrow roads in the area.

The agreed scheme will include a new reception and office and revised parking arrangements for the site.

Initial objectors included the Dorset branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England which described the larger plans as an ‘unnecessary desecration of a very important and historic part of Dorset’.

It claimed that extra holiday homes would also add to traffic in the area, already popular with visitors to nearby Hardy’s Cottage. However, Dorset Council Highways officers raised no objection to the proposals.

Stinsford parish council objected to the initial application for 14 holiday homes, but later dropped its opposition when the scheme was revised to the smaller number and changes made to the planned access route.

The award-winning holiday complex currently has 17 one and two storey holiday cottages on the site with a range of facilities including a games room, tennis courts, swimming pool, gardens, croquet lawn, children’s play area and laundry room.

The new cottages, to be built on the site of the disused barn, will be arranged around a grassed courtyard – two of two-storey and two single-storey. The new reception area and office will be single storey on the western part of the site with access off Bockhampton Lane. A further planning application is expected once that has been completed to convert the existing reception block into another holiday home.