4th January 2017
By Julia Penhaligon
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Planners have thrown out proposals to build 20 houses and a country hotel next to the National Trust’s Lanhydrock House estate, near Bodmin.

Cornwall Council planners voted 10-1 to reject the housing, and 8-4 to reject the hotel, at a meeting in Liskeard this afternoon. The project had enjoyed the support of Lanhydrock parish council.

The site is in a rural setting on farmland to the North East of a small cluster of approximately 14 dwellings which form the hamlet of Treffry. The hamlet is a historic farmstead and is characterised by the small scale clustering of traditional buildings around the Grade II Listed Treffry farmhouse, about a mile south of Bodmin.

Planning officials said the development would increase traffic on narrow country lanes and “would result in unacceptable harm to the rural landscape character and appearance of Treffry.”

The National Trust, whose Lanhyrdock estate and gardens would be only 40 metres away from the edge of the proposed development, said it shared the concerns of Historic England, who said: “While the proposed country inn appears to have been informed and steered by a more vernacular or pastiche approach, it would still extrude a mass and form that would make it conspicuous in the rural landscape.”

But the local parish council took the opposite view: “We feel the proposed inn will provide much needed employment opportunities within the parish that will allow local people (many of whom are currently forced to seek work outside of the parish) to work within walking distance of their homes. Furthermore, we believe that the inn will create a social hub and 'centre' for the village that has arguably been lacking since Lanhydrock House was taken over by the National Trust.”