Plan to replace garage with new homes in Oxfordshire

The owner hopes to replace Aston Repair Garage near Witney with a pair of semi-detached houses.

The site has a lengthy planning history going back as far as 1988.

Permission for two homes was granted in 2021 and will expire in January 2024.

A planning statement says it will not be possible to start the works by then and a new planning application has been submitted to gain new consent for the same development.

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The "simple, flat-fronted" three-bed and four-bed homes would be slightly set back from the pavement, with vehicle access at the northeastern part of the site through an archway entrance beneath one of the houses into a rear courtyard area.

Here there will be parking for five cars, a rear garden for each house and a small area of landscaping in the triangular 'corner' of the site.

"The dwellings have been designed with the character of other properties in this part of Aston in mind, particularly the two-storey residential properties on either side of the site," a planning document on behalf of the applicant states.

It concludes: "The redevelopment of the site would constitute the reuse of brownfield land in a sustainable location.

"The loss of the existing garage use is not considered to raise any issues in relation to the loss of employment use due to the small size of the site and is also balanced against the planning gain in neighbourliness terms from replacing a general industrial use with residential units.

"The dwellings proposed would also be of a more traditional and appropriate design for the centre of the village than the existing garage building and would enhance this part of the Conservation area."