It’s just overcome a potential planning hurdle
16:35, 21 May 2025Updated 16:35, 21 May 2025
The farm shop and cafe under construction at Tolldown Farm, Dyrham(Image: Google Maps)
The expansion of a car park onto an agricultural field that will serve a new farm shop and cafe near Bristol has been approved against the advice of planning officers.
South Gloucestershire councillors voted 8-0, with one abstention, to grant permission for the extension at Tolldown Farm, Dyrham, despite being recommended to refuse it.
Officers said the proposals would harm the rural setting and were not justified.
But 18 residents wrote in support of the application by John Doubleday, who has farmed the land for 45 years.
The development management committee agreed and gave the go-ahead after hearing that the 30 parking spaces for visitors and staff of the farm shop, which is under construction and will be run by the Fine Cheese Company, on the adjacent field would not be additional bays and amounted instead to a reconfiguration of the existing car park on safety grounds.
The officers’ report to the meeting said the site was in the open countryside within the Cotswolds National Landscape, next to the greenbelt and opposite a Grade II-listed pub.
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It said the application was a resubmission of one that was refused last December and that nothing had changed to grant consent.
The report said: “The proposed additional spaces would further result in an intensification of the site to a harmful degree, amounting to a visual intrusion of the landscape and its vista and, if allowed, would detract from the scenic beauty that the openness and character of the surrounding countryside currently offers.
“Given that the resubmitted proposal has not reduced the number of proposed spaces or made any notable changes to mitigate the overall impact, these concerns remain outstanding.
“Overall, whilst no highway safety objection has been raised by officers, the need for increasing the parking to a considerable degree has not been sufficiently demonstrated.”
Planning agent Matthew Blaken told the committee that the car park extension would be modest onto a small area of field to allow the reorganisation of the existing bays.
He said there would be no increase in spaces and that it would prevent parking on the road.
Mr Blaken said 15 jobs would be created when the farm shop opened.
South Gloucestershire Council highways officer Ali Khayatian said a new access would be created on a straight section of road with good visibility.
He said: “The new access is safe. They’re not proposing an additional access because they are closing one.”
Committee chairman Cllr Tristan Clark (Lib Dem, Frampton Cotterell) told the meeting on Thursday, May 15: “The benefits of supporting local business outweigh the level of harm to the Cotswolds National Landscape.”
The farm shop and cafe received planning permission in 2021, including the partial demolition of the bakery and an extension for the new business.
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