A developer’s attempt to build around 80 houses on land near Shaw has been turned down for the third time in as many years.

Planners at Wiltshire Council have refused Beechcroft Land’s bid to build 79 houses on a triangle of land north of Purton Road

The site close to Nova Hreod School is bound by the railway line to the south west and the River Ray to the north. Despite being on the very edge of Swindon the land is under the control of the county council.

The plan for the housing estate is similar to Beechcroft’s Land’s plan to put up 81 houses on the site which was turned down by Wiltshire Council in 2018 and then again when the company appealed to a government-appointed planning inspector.

The new application positioned the new development as very much being part of Swindon and refers to employment opportunities and leisure facilities available to the residents.

Among dozens of objections, one was made by Shaw Residents Association.

The group said: “The application is simply a resubmission of the 81 dwellings application dismissed by the planning inspectorate on the April 6 2020. Based on reasons for refusal we fail to see how merely reducing the proposal from 81 to 79 dwellings negates any grounds for refusal.

The group said the land was in Wiltshire Council’s core strategy as countryside and there are no special circumstances that would allow building on the land.

And it quoted the planning inspector as saying: “There was no need for further development west of Swindon. Even if there was, the proposed area was not representative of a sustainable option.”

Planners at County Hall in Trowbridge agreed.

The decision to refuse the application said: “The proposal is outside of the settlement boundary for Purton, so it is located in the open countryside and has not been allocated for residential development.

The proposal, including the provision of the new access into the site, would result in the urbanisation of this rural site which would result in harm to the local character, appearance and visual amenity of the immediate locality, including those currently enjoyed by pedestrians, cyclists and other users of this part of Old Purton Road and would result in the loss of local landscape features that are currently enjoyed.”