Plans approved for house described as an ‘enormous shoebox’ to be built in Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

An eye-catching house described as “architecturally innovative” but also “an enormous shoebox” will be built in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty after being unanimously approved by councillors.

A council officer told Swansea’s planning committee that he and his colleagues were satisfied with the design and size of the building in Penmaen within the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

He said the existing cottage on the plot in question had been extended several times and had lost its character and charm, and that the planning department didn’t think the replacement would have an adverse impact on neighbouring properties.

Footprint

He said the footprint of the proposed new house was smaller than the cottage’s, and that while its “overall mass and height is clearly bigger” it “sits quite comfortably in the plot” and had been moved further from its closest neighbour.

There were eight objection letters to the initial and amended application, plus a petition signed by 40 people. The Gower Society also objected. Speaking at the meeting, objector David Patton said the vast majority of the existing cottage was single-storey when viewed from the adjacent A4118 in contrast to the planned new one.

Mr Patton said replacement homes in Gower should not, according to supplementary planning guidance, be “boxy” or have a more significant impact than their predecessors.

Shoebox

He said: “From the road this (replacement house) just looks like an enormous dark brown or black shoebox.” It would, he said, “grossly affect” the landscape.

Mr Patton said it would be another “so-called contemporary” home in the area, some of which “looked more suitable to be in Johannesburg with their large imposing iron gates and high walls”.

He added that people were also concerned that construction work could damage two Cypress trees and that the new house, if given the go-ahead, could become an Airbnb rental property.

Glen Thomas, director of Glen Thomas Architecture, said applicants Edward and Rebecca Hayward wanted to move to Gower, where Mrs Hayward was from, and were attracted to the “beautiful plot and wonderful views”. It wasn’t clear to them at the start, he said, whether upgrading the existing cottage or a replacement property was the best way forward.

Mr Thomas said they opted for the latter because the cottage was “in such a poor state of repair” and couldn’t meet the high environmental standards they sought.

Demolished cottage

He said much of the demolished cottage would be re-used for the new home’s substructure and that the house would include an air source heat pump, solar panels, high performance windows, living green walls and new surrounding greenery. Mr Thomas added that the flat roof would be around two-and-a-half metres lower than a traditional pitched roof.

“We have really tried to lower the visual impact and sink it into the site,” he said. The property would, he said, be “an architecturally innovative, highly sustainable family home”.

Ward councillor Lynda James said nobody objected to the demolition of the cottage – it would take a lot of work, she said, to bring it up to scratch. Cllr James said the issue was the design of the replacement and its two-storey appearance as viewed from the road.

She said there were similar contemporary properties in South Gower but that they were more set back and “not so in your face”. She also said an application from a nearby householder to merge their dormer roofs into one dormer roof had been turned down by the council on the grounds of its impact on the character and appearance of the area.

The planning officer then spoke, saying among other things that there was nothing to suggest that the house would be used as holiday rental property. The committee, which had visited the development site earlier in the week, then voted in favour of the recommendation of approval.