SOMERSET Council has been hit with a potentially big legal bill after losing an appeal over 20 new homes in a small village.

Cotswold Homes and Redrow Homes jointly applied in October 2024 for outline permission to build up to 20 properties on land south of Great Dunns Close in Beckington.

Somerset Council’s planning committee east (which handles major applications within the former Mendip area) voted in early-July 2025 to refuse the plans, arguing they were “disproportionate to the village” and would cause additional sewage to be discharged into the nearby River Frome.

The developers lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate in a bid to overturn this decision, with a public inquiry originally being scheduled for early-March but subsequently being postponed to late-July.

The inspector has now ruled that the development should go ahead as planned and ordered the council to pay the developers’ legal costs due to “unreasonable behaviour” by its planning officers.

Planning inspector Philip Major visited the site on July 27 and 29, either side of the public hearing, with his full report being published on the Planning Inspectorate’s official website on Friday (September 18).

The inspector concluded in his findings that the council had indulged in “unreasonable behaviour” throughout the planning process including needlessly deferring a decision which resulted in “avoidable delay without good reason”.

He stated the council had wasted time at the appeal stage by “failing to agree factual matters”, had expanded its reasons for refusal “beyond their natural meaning”, and had failed to follow the advice of its own heritage expert.

This, coupled with the council’s legal team making “vague and generalised assertions unsupported by objective analysis”, made it reasonable to award costs in this instance.

The site in question is sandwiched between the existing properties on Great Dunns Close and Goose Lane, just south of the Beckington Services and near a planned development of 35 homes which was approved in December 2025.

Of the 20 homes planned for the site, six will be affordable, meeting the council’s 30 per cent target for any new development of ten homes or more within the former Mendip area.

Mr Major accepted that the site was not allocated within either part of the Mendip Local Plan, but said this was outweighed by the lack of a five-year housing land supply and “evidenced unmet need” in and around the village.

He also ruled that the new homes would be “clearly observed” from the listed buildings behind Goose Street, but would otherwise be largely “hidden from view” and therefore not have a significant impact on the village’s conservation area.

This is the second appeal in as many months in which the Somerset Council has been ordered to pay the appellants’ legal costs, following a ruling on the Cornish Farm Touring Park near the M5 on the outskirts of Taunton.

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The precise amount of costs awarded was not specified in Mr Major’s ruling.