A PARISH council has accused planning officers of setting a dangerous precedent by “tearing down” a village boundary to allow for homes to be built.

Councillors of Oaksey Parish Council has expressed their frustration after four homes were granted planning permission outside of the village boundary.

There was originally a plan to build on the site at The Street in 2014, however the proposals were rejected and subsequently refused at an appeal, partly due to the fact that they lay outside the settlement boundary.

Councillor Carole Soden of the parish council, who was a Wiltshire councillor for 30 years, said the application sets a dangerous precedent in the county.

“This was a clear cut case where the application had been turned down twice, so should never have gone through,” she said.

“I know in other parts of Wiltshire planners are not letting things go through beyond the boundary.

“Why this one went through I just don’t know. Nothing like that ever happened in my day.”

The application was discussed at a parish council meeting that Wiltshire Council member Chuck Berry would normally attend but missed.

He says he was given no subsequent instruction to call the application in, something he would be directly told to do at such meetings.

Cllr Berry says he feels planning permission was a “mistake” and says he hasn’t seen the same situation occur elsewhere.

“We didn’t expect the officer to grant it,” he said.

“It appears in further correspondence that Wiltshire Council planning team had scrubbed the whole idea of red lines in a village.

“The only thing that wrong footed us was the change in perspective with regards to the development line.”

Chairman of the parish council, Cllr Richard Moody, says he was incensed when he heard the proposal had been passed, which he described as “opportunistic”.

“They’d internally made a decision to set aside and remove our boundary and give permission outside the line,” he said.

“They promised they wouldn’t do this without review.

“We can’t make this go backwards, my motivation is to try and help that it might not happen again.

“We want better communication or at least some democracy.

“We didn’t know that they were considering setting aside the boundary.

“Wiltshire had been protected outside the boundary, until now. They’re supposed to if they set aside, it’s a big issue.”

Wiltshire Council were contacted for a comment but did not provide one at the time of going to print.