A plan to replace a cottage in South Cape, Laxey, with a three-storey house has been rejected by planners.

The planning committee unanimously went against the officer’s recommendation for application (18/00979/B) to be approved.

Submitted by Colin Rushmere, the plan had been to knock down the existing bungalow and replace it with a three-storey house, of which two storeys would be under the road line, giving the similar appearance of a one storey house from the main road.

A few other changes to application included the bricking up of the pedestrian access onto Old School Hill with a new entrance created six metres downhill, however the existing drive would have been retained.

During the committee meeting yesterday (Monday), the clerk of Garff Commissioners, Peter Burgess, spoke to confirm the local authority’s opposition to the plans.

The reasons for the commissioners’ opposition included the close proximity of the site to the Laxey Conservation Area and the Manx Electric Railway.

Mr Burgess said that the commissioners had also considered the proposed building to be ’out of place’ and criticised the mass of the building.

Objections put forward by residents of the village including the loss of privacy for a neighbouring property, the building being much larger than what exists now and that it ’failed to respect’ the surrounding area.

A representative of Ellis Brown Architects, acting as the agent for Mr Rushmere, said the company had aimed to created a ’bespoke design for a client who had moved to the island’.

He added that the new design, which replaced the original proposal for two buildings, followed the sloping geography of the area and ’looked more Manx’ than it had previously.

Despite the claims from neighbours, he said the windows and proposed balcony would not have disrupted neighbours’ privacy.

The planning committee was positive about the principle of the plan to ’take away an old cottage and replace it with something new’.

However, each member said that they couldn’t support the application due to the size of the proposed building.

The chairman of the committee, Tim Baker MHK, said it was ’clear the application has tried hard’ to make the building work on the site but that it was ’overbearing’.