Plans to demolish a pair of cottages “devastated” by a fire in Great Missenden and build a new home in its place were thrown out by the council yesterday evening.

In January 2017 a fire tore through numbers one and two Kingswood Cottages in Swan Lane, destroying the building’s interior making it “structurally unstable”.

Chiltern District Council’s planning committee discussed proposals to bulldoze the cottages and build a detached five-bedroom home in its place on Thursday, August 9.

However the plans were strongly opposed by chairman of The Lee Parish Council, Colin Sully, who raised concerns the new building does not “reflect and respect the character of the surrounding area”.

He told the committee: “I should make it clear firstly the parish council is not objecting to the demolition and re-build at this site, nor is it objecting to moving the footprint of the new building, nor increasing the footprint.

“The parish council points out that though there may well be a variety of styles, scales, designs and materials in the area, there are certainly no large mock Georgian style properties of this type and size in the vicinity of these cottages.”

However Jonathan Weekes, speaking on behalf of chartered surveyors Aitchison Raffety, said the proposed building is only slightly larger than the current cottages.

He added: “The site is in disrepair and somebody needs to come forward to actually make it have a positive contribution to the area again.

“This application we believe offers such an opportunity.”

However councillor Murray Harrold raised concerns the two deteriorating properties would be replaced with just one detached house.

Cllr Jane MacBean told the committee she is “relieved” developers are not trying to build 25 homes on the site, however added similar buildings in the area are on a “much smaller scale”.

She said: “This is one of the ones where I certainly don’t have a problem with the style of this house and the applicant’s agent is quite right, just a few lanes away there is a building of very similar almost identical style.

“However that building is on a smaller scale and I think this is one of those applications where I don’t have huge problem with it but it has just gone a little bit too far.”

Councillors refused the application.