PLANS to build 70 homes in a village have been recommended for refusal.

Eastlight Community Homes launched a bid to build the homes in Bocking in June, on land between Bovingdon Road and the River Pant.

It comes after the developers sought permission to build 86 homes on the land in 2019 but this application was withdrawn.

Eastlight Community Homes was created after a merger between Colne Housing and Greenfields Community Housing last year.

It has pledged to build 3,800 homes in Essex and Suffolk.

Planning officers at Braintree Council have recommended the proposals for refusal ahead of a planning committee meeting on September 28.

Reasons include the site being in the Bocking conservation area, the impact on Bocking, it being outside the Braintree town boundary and the probability of flooding.

A report says: “The proposed location, scale and density of development would alter the western approach into the conservation area and alter the settings of nearby listed buildings, resulting in harm to the significance of designated and non-designated heritage assets.

“The proposal would introduce a sizeable new development to an area of open countryside and would result in an unnatural extension to the neighbouring settlement of Bocking.

“The location of the site and topography of the land are such that any development on this site would have a harmful impact upon the rural character and appearance of the area."

“The site is not capable of satisfactorily accommodating up to 70 dwellings and would result in a development which is urban in character, unrelated to its context and generally failing to secure a high standard of design or good level of amenity for future occupiers."

The report says the site is also in a flood zone.

It added: “Part of the site does not pass the sequential test and given that the application site’s status as being partly located within Flood Zone 3, alternative sites within the District, with a lower probability of flooding, could accommodate the proposed residential development.”