A LANDOWNER who went back to Cornwall Council for the fifth time to request planning to create a new entrance to a field has once again been refused.

Christopher Morgan argues that the current entrance to the field off Stony Lane in Drakewalls is too narrow for modern machinery. He wants to remove around ten metres of hedgerow, which he says he will reinstate inside the field, in order to create a separate new access point, and install a four metre steel gate, with Cornish stone hedging either side.

Mr Morgan says that as there are high voltage electrical cables running over the fields, the grass needs to be regularly cut to elimintae fire risk in the summer months.

Planning officer Ellen Lawrence said that the most recent planning application was “either identical or very similar” to the ones before it. No new information had been provided, she said, to justify the removal of part of a hedgerow “more than 30 years old and more than 20 metres in length”, which gives it the status of “important” under national regulations.

The officer said: “It may the case that the existing access is too small for the modern machinery, but this is not an exceptional circumstance to justify the removal of the important hedgerow. Officers would question whether the existing access can be modified to suit the applicant's needs.

“The existing hedgerow is considered to provide a valuable contribution to the character and visual amenities of the surrounding area and the National Landscape. Whilst it is acknowledged that the section of hedgerow to be removed is small-scale in the wider context of the National Landscape, it is the replication of these small changes that have an erosive, cumulative impact resulting in harm to the historic landscape character.”