A ‘PALATIAL’ Buckinghamshire home once crowned ‘house of the year’ will not feature a heated outdoor swimming pool anytime soon after the owner was refused planning permission.

Applicant Simon Turner also wanted to add a hot tub, a viewing area, changing rooms and toilets to ‘Fayland’, a large property in Hambleden, between Henley and High Wycombe.

However, Buckinghamshire Council rejected his proposals due to the application containing “insufficient information” to allow the authority to properly assess the ecological impact of the development, which is located in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The application failed to demonstrate how the surrounding chalk grassland priority habitat and species would be dealt with, the council said.

It added that the proposed swimming pool and associated works would “result in a net loss in biodiversity” and were not shown to comply with the relevant planning policies.

The council’s decision will come as a blow to the owner of Fayland, which was crowned ‘house of the year’ at the Architectural Review House Awards in 2015.

The modernist Chilterns property, which was designed by David Chipperfield Architects and completed in 2013, was described by the jury as a “radical new take on the English country house” due to its courtyard.

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Architectural Review said the “palatial, private residence”, set into a wooded chalk escarpment, was among “some of the most sought-after housing to be found within commuting distance of London”.

The publication described Fayland as a “house where one lives on one’s feet and takes pleasure in the constantly shifting relationship to the landscape beyond.”

The front of the three-bedroom home features 11 columns spread across a south-west-facing loggia providing views across the countryside towards the River Thames.

The proposed outdoor swimming pool, hot tub and other works would have been situated to the west of the house.

The 128 sqm and 1.40m deep pool would act as a central feature of the new works, according to the application’s design statement.

It would sit on a hardscape platform serving as an outdoor seating area overlooking the landscape, which would provide access to the 7.80 sqm hot tub.

The plans also included air source heat pumps to warm the pool and hot tub, a plant room for filtration equipment and an overflow tank, which were to be located below ground level.

Following the council’s decision to refuse permission, the applicant can appeal to the Secretary of State.

To view the application, use reference number 22/06097/FUL in the council’s planning portal.