YEAR-ROUND use of the holiday site at Osmington Mills has been rejected by a Dorset Council area planning committee.

Owermoigne councillor Nick Ireland claimed it was nonsense to argue that the site was ‘sustainable’ when recent applications for homes in his village had been refused because they were considered not to be – although the village had local facilities available and a bus route.

“I don’t understand why this is considered sustainable when some villages are not…it doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said.

Other councillors were concerned about enforcing a condition of the planning consent which would mean people not being allowed to use the site as their main residence. Others said the increased use of the site would have an impact on the ecology of the area and up the site’s carbon footprint with additional heating and lighting as well as extra visitors travelling to and from the site.

The Osmington Mills Protection Group had used similar arguments in their opposition to the year-round use while the site owners, the Waterside Holiday Group, said other sites in Dorset already had year-round use and they saw no reason, not to offer the same to their clients.

Their agent, Richard Burgess, argued that the 10-months only condition did not reflect modern holiday trends or recognise the higher standards of insulation of the lodge-type accommodation now on the site, compared to the units in place when the original condition was put in place in 1987.

The site has permission for up to 69 cedar lodges and a five-bedroom boutique hotel, which has not yet been completed, together with a country club, bar, restaurant and a swimming pool complex.

The application for year-round use had attracted more than a twenty letters of objection many saying that the respite for a few months from the additional traffic, light and noise is necessary for residents.

The refusal came after two votes – the first went 6-3 to reject the application although councillors struggled to put the detail to their reasons.

A second vote resulted in 7 for refusal with two abstentions, none against, after officers had produced policy reasons for turning the application down – essentially based around sustainability and increasing the site’s carbon footprint because of additional winter use.

The decision was expected to be made by a Dorset Council area planning committee last month but was postponed at the last minute ‘for technical reasons.’

Unless there is an appeal which can be concluded before January next year the site will still have to close between January 15th and March 15th, with the exception of one lodge which already has a year-round consent