A “PRISON-like and industrial” development of new houses which differs significantly from the original planning application has been retrospectively approved in a coastal village.

At Keveral Gardens in Seaton, residents say they have had years of disruption and worry after an application for 10 houses on the hillside overlooking the sea was approved by a planning inspector following Cornwall Council’s initial refusal.

Neighbours describe a litany of problems during the construction of the Southshore scheme, including claims that “materials have not been secured and have fallen dangerously into gardens below” and that “waste has been buried on site”. With the project still not finished, residents are concerned about a huge spoil heap left on the hillside, a road extending beyond the approved planning boundary, and a service road built at a higher level than planned, impinging on the privacy of households below, and in some cases, they say, even blocking access to the rear of neighbouring properties.

For Deviock Parish Council, the most worrying thing of all is that major changes to the approved plans have been allowed, long after building work actually started, by way of a planning policy that was originally intended to help the delivery of housing by allowing developers to make minor alterations to a scheme.

Addressing the Cornwall East Planning Committee at end of 2024, local council chairman Mark Gibbons said: “This development is now in its fourth year, with no obvious end date, despite initial assurances that it would be an 18 month project, and local residents have been severely impacted by it.

“The local community has serious concerns about the stability of the massive spoil heap created on the hillside above them. Residents are further frustrated by the damage caused to the road surfaces of both Keveral Lane and Keveral Gardens and by the developer’s refusal to engage with requests for repairs.

“Primarily however, we are all dismayed that the development, in its current form, bears little resemblance to the plans that were originally submitted and approved. This followed a great deal of effort from community groups, the Parish Council and Cornwall Council planning on an application that was ultimately decided by the Planning Inspector.

“Far from the quality properties promised, with landscaping and finished in natural materials to blend in to the surrounding countryside, there now sits a set of industrial steel clad structures fronted by car parking.”

Cllr Gibbons says that the Parish Council was told that there was little they could do to challenge the changes made. The developer, P Stephens, had made a Section 73 planning application for a variation in conditions to a previously approved scheme. This part of the Town and Country Planning Act enables developers to make changes to a project without submitting a whole new planning application. A court case in 2022 challenged the scope of these variations, with the judgement effectively paving the way not just for minor amendments but for “substantial or fundamental variations”.

In his application to Cornwall Council, P Stephens said that it had been impossible to build to the approved plans, and that the plots had been “altered to suit the ground conditions and the topography of the land”.

Local people have argued that the applicant should have sought changes much earlier on, rather than “continuing to build to unapproved plans”.

One resident of Seaton said: “The developer has been proceeding as though the constraints under which we are all required to operate simply do not apply to them”.

Another commented that “during the period when the application was pending, construction continued unchecked, with three properties erected in this time” and that the “failure of the planning department to investigate breaches reported by residents provided the developer with a loophole that should have been closed”.

On the Southshore website, the company invites prospective buyers to escape to Seaton, to properties where “by day or night, the interior design, architectural exteriors or calming countryside setting and backdrops are all in constant symbiosis, with twinkling stars, singing birds and ocean flow”.

At Southshore, says the developer, modern art-deco design meets Miami beach house style with a splash of refined glamour. Curved driveways, sleek, striking architecture and gargantuan balconies create a “James Bond or Marvel superhero home feel” with houses described as “blending seamlessly into the surrounding environment”.

But the view of one person living nearby is that the buildings “now starkly protrude over Seaton”.

“They are rapidly deteriorating, with the once-white render (which was outside of the planning agreement) turning a grimy brown due to poor drainage, and the zinc material is peeling away. “The external plant rooms are a particular eyesore. The external staircases give the entire site the appearance of a prison camp, completely out of character with the area. Passersby frequently remark on how brutalistic and prison-like these properties are.”

Local council chairman Mark Gibbons continued: “We are all struggling to understand how it can be acceptable to wave through changes of this magnitude. We are talking about substantial design alterations (shifting from cantilever construction to houses on steel columns, swapping approved natural materials for zinc and steel, increasing floorspace by a net 300 square metres).

“We have unapproved roads extending beyond the planning boundary, and terraced landscaping has been replaced with road-level car parking resulting in cosmetic and biodiversity losses.

“I hope this precedent is effectively challenged in the future.”

Cllr Gibbons said he wished to acknowledge the work of a capable planning officer, Josep Sandercock, who had comprehensively addressed the Parish Council’s concerns through a set of eight enforceable conditions.

Deviock Parish Council says that both it and residents will now be monitoring the developer’s adherence to these conditions, which include the removal of waste from the site.

“We would rather it hadn’t got this far and that we weren’t dealing with something retrospective. But I am confident that the council, the residents’ association and the community will be keeping a close eye on it and will be reporting to Cornwall Council. It is only good having conditions if they are enforced.

“A lot of people now feel they just want to get this done.”

Laura Done of the Downderry and Seaton Residents Association (DaSRA) said that over the years the building work had been going on, DaSRA had raised issues of concern with the parish council, county council and the construction company themselves.

“Some concerns have been addressed, and some are ongoing,” she said.

“Now that Cornwall Council has assessed the current application and given approval with eight clearly defined conditions, local expectation is that the development will be completed without delay and will meet the conditions.

“This development of 10 new houses is already well advanced and indeed there are already owner-residents enjoying living in completed properties and ready to be part of a community of neighbouring residents.”

With regard to one householder who said they had found themselves effectively blocked from the rear of their own property, DaSRA said: “Cornwall Council's final decision now lays the way forward for the resident to pursue their own action with the expectation of an amicable solution to their particular concern. This is their preferred course of action.”

The Cornish Times approached the developer for comment but had not received a reply at the time of writing.