PLANS to demolish a bungalow and build two five-bedroom homes in its place have been refused on grounds of overdevelopment.

The application for a site in Clay Street, Whiteparish, prompted 14 letters of objection with concerns over the change in landscape, its overbearing impact and disruption for neighbours during the excavation of a large amount of soil.

Speaking at Thursday's southern area planning committee meeting, Neil Sutherland from Whiteparish Parish Council said: "We're going from three bedrooms and one bathroom [on the site] to ten bedrooms and eight bathrooms, plus two cloakrooms, so on the water supply side there is a problem which is going to have to be addressed."

Applicant Dan Roycroft said the two homes, described as chalet bungalows, would replace a dilapidated bungalow and that the updated plans had taken account of concerns over a similar previous application for the site which was refused in 2016.

Councillors generally agreed the plot which is accessed via an unadopted road was big enough for two houses but they voted unanimously against the plans, saying the homes were out of keeping with the street and excavations to level the site would create a "dramatic change" to the landscape.

Councillor Richard Clewer said: "Clay Street runs down the hill at an angle and digging out part of the hill to build a two-storey property makes no sense whatsoever, it's destroying part of the landscape in the village."

And councillor Richard Britton said: "It creates a very alien feature to gouge out all this earth, a massive excavation is required which itself will be an incongruous feature in Clay Street which is in a very rural setting.

"They're two very attractive houses but not in this setting."

Councillor Ian Tomes added: "I feel we are pushing the plot too much to take that much earth out, it will have an impact on that street.

"I just think with a lot of applications, we have gone past the easy applications where there wasn't too much of a compromise that had to be taken to squeeze extra properties in.

"We are increasingly coming to plots of land where the compromise is just too much."