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'Luxury' home farm plan refused

By Laura Herbert
December 04, 2012

Plans to build a ‘luxury’ home on farmland have been refused.

Roy Maslin applied to Wokingham Borough Council to build a three-bedroom home with a garage for an agricultural worker at Barkham Manor Farm to replace a temporary mobile home.

The farm rears turkeys and pigs and an assessment found there is a need for the home to ensure the security of the animals and equipment.

During a planning committee meeting on Wednesday, November 14, Pam Stubbs, who chairs Barkham Parish Council, branded the application ‘a luxury home’.

The majority of committee members voted against a planning officer’s recommendation to approve the plans.

Laurence Heath, speaking on behalf of people living close to the Barkham Road farm, said: “There is a great danger agriculture will be used more widely to achieve development in the countryside.”

Agent Mark Willis, on behalf of Mr Maslin, said: “This a modest three- bedroom house and it will accommodate the applicant, his wife, son and his partner and their young child.”

Committee member Councillor John Kaiser, ward member for Barkham, said: “I’m surprised Mr Wills calls it a modest house. The Royal Institute of British Architects says an average three bedroom house is 88sqm but this is 196sqm.

“I don’t think it is a small house.”

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