This was an interesting and challenging site where the applicant wanted to attain planning permission for a residential development on the site of a mixed-use farmyard on the edge of the village of East Kennet. Not only was the site located within the North Wessex Downs National Landscape, but it was also partly within a Conservation Area, and surrounded on three sides by the Avebury World Heritage Site. 

​Unsurprisingly this was a highly sensitive landscape in which to work in and WHLandscape were requested to look into the potential landscape and visual effects associated with the scheme and assess the development options at the site. It was determined that a residential development was feasible, given the existing farmyards limited contribution to the wider landscape, however the site was only capable of accommodating carefully designed change, which respected its rural setting within the Kennet Valley

WHLandscape, working with Mathewson Waters Architects, developed a scheme that focused on replicating the pattern of planting and built form that defines the residential edge of East Kennett, so that the new development could be effectively integrated into the wider landscape.

The scheme was approved, with no objections being raised by the council’s landscape officer and the submitted landscape strategy, prepared by WHLandscape, being conditioned to ensure a satisfactory landscaped setting for the development.