A GROUP of Bere Alston residents took to the streets on Saturday to protest over plans to build three detached houses in the village.

Campaigners bore placards to demonstrate against the proposed development on a former orchard to the rear of land of the United Church in Fore Street.

They claim the application by Ashtons Developments is overdevelopment and the access is dangerous.

An application in 2008 by the previous owner to build three houses on the site was granted conditional consent by West Devon Borough Council but a proposal in 2010 by the current owners for four dwellings was rejected and dismissed on appeal. Now the developers have made a fresh application to the borough council.

One of the protesters Pete Walshe, 57, claimed: 'The site is tiny, 0.03 hectares, the size of a large garden and is within a conservation area. Access to and from the site is appalling and thoroughly dangerous.'

He said the purpose of the demonstration was to show how angry some local people were at what they described as 'a totally inappropriate site for housing'.

'Their most recent scheme for four properties on this tiny garden site was dismissed on appeal by the planning inspectorate for a range of different reasons,' he said.

Mr Walshe has written to West Devon Borough Council to list his objections, asking it to enforce the policies it has written in its local plan for conservation areas.

However, Mark Cox for Ashtons Developments, refuted Mr Walshe's claim that over a four-year period 'they have submitted a successive number of schemes, each more densely packed and poorly designed than the last'.

He told the Times his company bought the site a little over a year ago and this was only the second scheme they had applied for. He also disagreed with Mr Walshe's claim that the proposed development was 0.03 hectares but 0.15 hectares.

Mr Cox said: 'The only fundamental difference with our new proposal, compared to the current approved planning scheme, is that we are proposing changing the two semi-detached houses to two detached houses.'

He said they were not looking at making the houses bigger as Mr Walshe suggested, nor was the design changing.

'We feel the site will look more attractive and balanced with three detached houses rather than the approved scheme,' (one detached and two semi-detached) he added.

'We feel that Mr Walshe is overlooking the fact that planning approval has already been granted for the site and that we aren't proposing making wholesale changes — the houses are no bigger and the design remains the same as the approved scheme.'

West Devon Borough Council confirmed it was considering the latest application.