A Conservative West Lindsey District Councillor has welcomed the decision by the national Planning Inspectorate to dismiss an appeal for 200 homes at Larch Avenue, Nettleham.

Cllr. Giles McNeill, who represents the Nettleham ward and took the lead representing the local planning authority at the hearings held during the appeal, commented:

“I am thrilled that Mr. Boniface, the inspector, has agreed with us and dismissed the appeal. The proposal to build 200 homes with roads, infrastructure and public open space was totally at odds with local sentiments – expressed in the Nettleham Neighbourhood Plan.

“It will come as greatly reassuring that having adopted the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan the inspector has relied on the relevance of this document, together with that of the neighbourhood plan, in coming to his view that the proposal would be at odds with the amount and location of development for the village and would result in harm on the character and appearance of the area.

“The original planning application was made in March 2015 and now over two years later I am glad that the matter has finally been concluded. I wrote the Council’s Statement of Case – which was longer than my dissertation at university – it took several weeks to pull together and at times I thought it might prove to be in vain. Today though, I know, that local people will be genuinely pleased that we have got the result we wanted.”