Decision delayed on controversial mountainside development

Anthony Lewis, Local Democracy Reporter 

A controversial planning application linked to a long-running dispute over public access to a mountainside in south Wales has been put on hold after attracting more than 60 objections, with councillors agreeing to visit the site before making a decision.

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s planning committee decided to carry out a site visit in relation to a planning application at Ger Y Coed off Vicarage Terrace above Cwmparc.

The application seeks permission for crushed aggregate hardstanding, fencing and the change of use of land to residential garden forming part of the property’s curtilage.

Councillor Wendy Lewis suggested the visit so the committee can see exactly what’s happening there describing it as a “very contentious” issue which has been rumbling for a long time now.

The application has attracted 61 individual objections, with the committee report also recording objections from Senedd Members Heledd Fychan and Andrew RT Davies as well as former Senedd Member Rhys Ab Owen.

The application is the latest chapter in the local controversy over access to Cwmparc Forest, dubbed “Gategate” by campaigners.

The council report confirms that a lane running between the application site and the main dwelling at Ger Y Coed has been classified as highway by the local authority.

It also refers to gates previously erected in the area which were subsequently removed, and to a separate application seeking to register a public right of way.

The application site lies outside the Treorchy settlement boundary and within the Rhondda Fawr Northern Cwm and Slopes Special Landscape Area.

The planning objections centre on the cumulative effect of hardstanding, substantial fencing, gates and other domestic features in a sensitive landscape location.

Objectors have raised concerns about inappropriate materials and engineering works, the scale and appearance of the fencing, countryside encroachment and extending residential curtilage beyond the settlement boundary.

The council report describes Ger Y Coed as a large detached dwelling and records a highway running between the application site and the main dwelling.

Local councillor and Open Spaces Society director Richard Clarke, who objected to the scheme before being elected as a ward councillor, has argued that the planning issues now extend beyond the continuing rights-of-way dispute.

He argues that the combination of hardstanding, substantial fencing, gates and enclosure amounts to the gradual domestication of previously open land and harms the visual character of the transition between Cwmparc and the mountainside.

His argument is that while neither being outside the settlement boundary nor being within a Special Landscape Area automatically prevents development, councillors must decide what practical significance those protections have if land beyond the boundary is progressively incorporated into residential use.

He says he is asking officers to clarify the relationship between the application land and the existing residential curtilage of the two properties at 1 an 2 Ger Y Coed.

In documents released by Natural Resources Wales under environmental information legislation, the applicant described plans to purchase the neighbouring plot and then apply for the claimed right of way to be moved from its existing position onto that land.

The correspondence also sought Natural Resources Wales’ agreement to use the land for a bridleway and said the proposed solution would maintain the security and privacy of the home while getting people “back onto the mountain.”

Despite the objections, planning officers have concluded that the proposal would not result in unacceptable harm to the character and appearance of the area, residential amenity, highway safety, flood risk and drainage interests, biodiversity or ecology.

The report says the development accords with policies AW5, AW6, AW7, AW8, AW10 and NSA25 of the Rhondda Cynon Taf Local Development Plan and recommends approval subject to conditions.