Martin Clunes has won a reprieve in his battle over plans for a development beside his £5 million home, amid concerns the site could eventually become a traveller hub.
The Doc Martin star is likely to be relieved after the latest planning application was withdrawn. Earlier this year, he lost a four-year campaign against neighbours Theo Langton and his partner Ruth McGill, New Age Travellers who received permission to make their temporary mobile home site permanent.
Now, neighbours on the opposite side of Mr Clunes’s farm, Andy Cream and Grace Burger, have pulled their own proposal from Dorset Council. The couple had sought permission to launch an eco-business supplying fruit and vegetable boxes to nearby residents by e-bike.
Their plans included a storage barn, two crop-growing polytunnels and a greenhouse. They described the project as “an important part of a local food system” that would strengthen food security while improving the area’s carbon footprint, health and biodiversity.
The proposal was strongly supported by Mr Langton, a prominent advocate of food security in the Beaminster area.
But Mr Clunes, 64, feared the agricultural plans could pave the way for the couple to establish a permanent home on the land, about 150 yards from his farm.
In a strongly worded letter to the council, the actor criticised the application and appeared to take aim at Mr Langton and the decision to approve a permanent traveller site.
Martin Clunes and his wife Philippa Braithwaite attend a Dorset Council meeting at County Hall in Dorchester earlier this year
Mr Cream and Ms Burger’s proposal included a storage barn, two polytunnels for crops and a greenhouse
A view showing Martin Clunes’s house at the bottom and Theo Langton’s new woodland travellers’ site in the upper middle of the image
It is unclear whether Mr Cream and Ms Burger will submit a fourth application. They have already withdrawn two other planning proposals, including one that prompted objections from Mr Clunes’s television producer wife, Philippa Braithwaite.
The first application was submitted last July alongside a proposal for a temporary agricultural workers’ dwelling. Both were withdrawn after complaints from Mrs Braithwaite and other residents.
The couple later submitted a revised application in April focused solely on the farm. The proposal divided opinion locally, attracting more than 100 letters from residents, before being withdrawn on Monday.
In a sarcastic letter criticising Dorset Council’s handling of planning matters, Mr Clunes wrote: “It seems that this application is the same as the original one made by this couple except that in this they no longer state that it is essential to their plans that they live at the site.”
He added: “I think that it is safe to assume, given the flimsy nature of their business plan that living at the site is their ultimate goal.”
Mr Clunes continued: “From personal experience my advice to these applicants would be to carry on and do whatever they like on the land they have bought.”
He went on to claim: “They can ignore any rulings or conditions applied by Dorset County Council as they will not enforce them.”
Theo Langton and Ruth McGill were given permission to make their encampment permanent and add two spaces for travelling caravans so family and friends can visit
“After a few years of inactivity and a number of changes of the planning committee as their case is kicked down the line the planning officer and committee will circle their wagons and hand hold the applicants through an acceptance of whatever work or additions they have made to the land in the face of any objection raised by their neighbours and without any consultation with anyone affected by their actions,” he wrote.
He concluded: “In this way the council will seem to have not needed to enforce what they had not managed to enforce. At no point will Dorset County Council address, acknowledge or apologise for any lack of action on their part as they are answerable to no one and operate without regulation.”
‘In their piety the planning committee will say that each application is judged on its own merits, this is nonsense, precedent is everything. You’ll be fine.’
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When the first application was submitted, Mrs Braithwaite wrote a stern objection claiming that the barn may ultimately be converted into a house and spoke of the long-running issues they’d had with people living in the woods and on Mr Langton’s site called Wintergreen Barn.
‘The applicants say they want to live there permanently to take care of the vegetables which seems a roundabout way to get round the planning system so they can eventually convert the barn to a house,’ wrote Mrs Braithwaite.
‘We have had so many years of battles with people in the area living in the woods above the site and at Wintergreen Barn; people come and go all the year round and live there when they want a place to stay – my feeling is the same will happen on this site.’
She goes onto complain that the area is prone to flooding and the entrance to the site is on a blind bend, which ‘would be lethal to have bicycles, trucks and vans coming in and out to deliver vegetables.’
Martin Clunes pictured near his home in Beaminster in Dorset
Mrs Braithwaite was skeptical that deliveries would be strictly on e-bikes as that is ‘obviously completely impractical in winter’.
She signed off the letter stating that their business plan isn’t ‘viable’, nor would it make money, adding: ‘The area is a protected AONB where any planning decisions must protect or enhance the environment – these applications do neither and a large polytunnel and barn will detract from this magical piece of ancient land.’
The latest design and access statement revealed Mr Cream and Ms Burger wanted to create ‘a traditional market garden growing more than 100 varieties of seasonal vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers across one acre of minimal tillage land.’
‘In the longer term, they plan to also produce orchard fruit (from the newly planted traditional orchard), nuts, mushrooms and honey.
‘Produce from the market garden will be sold via two main outlets, direct to the local community via a ‘veg box’ scheme and to local businesses, such as greengrocers, restaurants, cafes and delis.
‘Given the close proximity of the land to the town centre, deliveries to Beaminster will be via electric delivery bicycle to reduce the carbon footprint of the produce.
‘Production of essential goods (fruit, vegetables etc) within Beaminster would reduce reliance on imported goods and help create resilient local food supply chains, supporting the local economy.
‘The applicants believe the market garden will form an important part of a local food system that improves the food security, carbon footprint, health and biodiversity of the local area.’
Mr Langton – a former town councillor who’s lived in the area for over 30 years – stated in his letter of support that he is a contributor to the area’s Community Emergency Resilience Plan and had an opposing opinion to the Clunes.
‘I value the small scale, sensitive and ecologically diverse approach the applicants are taking on their plans/planting schemes for the site,’ he writes.
‘Food security is but one of the key pillars of our resilience. It is fully understood, that this country can no longer depend upon a just in time food systems delivery model.
‘A system that is utterly dependent on outmoded practices and capability that is not resilient to the risk profiles they are matched against.
‘The climate and ecological emergency, resource competition, economic and global instability/conflict etc.
‘All this is listed and in line with Dorset’s own climate and ecological emergency strategy.’
He signs off the letter saying: ‘To support food security, an application like this could even be seen a mandatory part of our critical local infrastructure.
‘That, I imagine, along with many other necessary measures that will address the changes we as a whole society are going to have to confront.’
