Pembrokeshire County Council has refused plans to extend a caravan storage facility near Stepaside.

Through agent Gethin Beynon, Noel Richards sought permission to extend an existing caravan storage facility at Merrixton House Farm, northwards, covering a site area of 2,990 square metres and enclosed by a Pembrokeshire hedge bank.

An accompanying statement said: “The main purpose of the extended storage facility is to improve vehicle movements around the existing storage facility and reduce the congested nature of the existing storage site arrangement.

“No members of the public visit the storage facility as for safety and insurance purposes, the owners of the storage facility provide a collection and store service. The extension of the storage facility would add to the efficiency of the operation and diversification of the existing rural enterprise to secure and create additional employment.”

It added that the storage compound is owner-managed. “The development would therefore not result in an influx of visitor vehicular numbers.”

Amroth Community Council was ‘minded to object,’ saying: “Councillors are unable to understand why such a large extension is needed if the number of vans/boats stored is not necessarily to increase.” They also expressed concern that the field in question is at a higher elevation, making the vans more visible.

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park has said the scheme “has the potential for adverse landscape and visual impacts on the National Park landscape”.

The council’s highways department recommended refusal, saying it “represents an unacceptable intensification of use of a substandard access road, in the absence of evidence to demonstrate that the impacts on highway safety can be adequately mitigated”.

The application was refused on the grounds of increased “visual clutter” and insufficient highway safety information, given that access is from “a narrow unclassified single-track road with the carriageway below the recommended standard for two-way flow.”