A ZERO carbon house has been approved for a site at Winfrith Newburgh.

Dorset Council has agreed planning consent for the home - a change from the original application, which sought to convert a barn into two homes.

The low-energy two-bed ‘passivhaus’ will be assembled at Fossil Barn, The Drove, and aims to be zero carbon in both construction and day-to-day use.

It will sit alongside an existing barn, part of which will be removed to make way for an annexe to the main house.

The site is in the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and close to heathland registered as being either sites of special scientific interest or of special protection.

Finished in timber cladding and stone under a metal profile route architects claim the two-bed house, a storey and a half high, will appear as a traditional rural home: “Every aspect of the house, from each stage of design, construction and through to the use and future potential has been carefully considered resulting in an efficient, warm, dry, light filled and beautifully practical building that will fit in to its local environment whilst minimising the impact on the wider environment,” said a statement to Dorset Council.

The house itself will be extremely well insulated and, effectively, sealed from the outside with fresh air provided via a mechanical ventilation system which will incorporate a heat recovery unit, retaining heat from the extracted stale air. An air source heat pump is proposed for the heating and hot water for the property.

Construction will take place off-site.

Several neighbours and the parish council wrote to Dorset Council to support the proposals, one commenting that in an ideal world, more homes would be built this way.