Case study / Offchurch

Highlands Farm, and what it taught us.

A single home in the Warwickshire Green Belt, pursued down the hardest route in English planning. Refused, and dismissed at appeal. Published because the reason is worth knowing before you commit.

The proposed home, glimpsed through the parkland trees it was designed around. A pre-application visualisation of a scheme that was never built.

The facts

Paragraph 84 home architects, Warwickshire.

One exceptional-quality rural dwelling on the edge of a Warwickshire village, taken from first sketch through two independent design reviews to a full application and an appeal.

The project

One house, on the hardest route.

364.4sqm gross internal

Location: Long Itchington Road, Offchurch, Warwickshire
Client: A private couple, self-builders, anonymised by agreement
Route: NPPF Paragraph 84, the exceptional-quality rural dwelling test
Our scope: RIBA Stages 0 to 3, as architect and design author, with the Design, Access and Heritage Statement
Outcome: Refused, W/22/0198, 7 October 2022; appeal dismissed, APP/T3725/W/23/3320052, 15 March 2024

Not built. Published as our experience of the Paragraph 84 route, not as an outcome.

The brief

A home for a paddock and alpacas.

The owners kept alpacas on a 2.5 hectare paddock on the edge of Offchurch and ran a survey business from a building in the south-west corner. They wanted to live on the land they were already looking after.

The brief was a single-storey house of clean lines and timber, drawn from an interest in Japanese architecture and biophilic design: a home inside the woodland rather than beside it.

Accommodation: Three en-suite bedrooms, study, snug, pantry, greenhouse, open kitchen, dining and living heart
Form: Single storey and flat roofed, so the house sits between the ground and the tree canopy
Site: About 2.5 hectares of rough grassland with groups of mature trees
Designations: Green Belt, Offchurch Conservation Area, and a Grade II* church and Grade II house in the setting

The journey

Four years, and no house.

Planning journey for Highlands Farm, Offchurch: appointed at RIBA Stage 0 in January 2020; a first independent design review in May 2021; a second design review in December 2021; the application submitted in March 2022; refused on four grounds in October 2022; and the appeal dismissed in March 2024

Two years of design and independent review, then two more through determination and appeal. The line ends open because the scheme does.

The site

Closer to the village than it looks.

Photographed before the design began. Everything that decided this application is in these three frames.

The edge

A field with a village alongside.

The paddock reads as open countryside from the road. It is also bounded by private houses to the north and a poultry business to the north-east, with the village a field away. That proximity decided the case.

Aerial photograph of the site at Highlands Farm, Offchurch: the open grass paddock with alpacas grazing behind post-and-rail fencing, a belt of mature trees down the left-hand boundary, and the village and its church tower visible on the horizon just beyond the field

The trees

A linear belt, running through the middle.

A long group of mature trees runs south-west to north-east across the site, with further groups to the boundaries. The design was built around it: the house nests against this belt rather than standing clear of it.

Photograph across the grassland at Highlands Farm looking towards the linear belt of mature trees that runs across the middle of the site, with open pasture in front and the boundary fencing and paddock structures beneath the canopy

The prospect

A broad ridge, with long views south.

The land sits slightly above the road on a broad ridge, with extensive views south across undulating countryside. The Inspector could see the site from the Fosse Way, some distance away, and said so.

Photograph south across the paddock at Highlands Farm: an alpaca grazing in the foreground, the timber alpaca pens to the right beneath a mature tree, and long views over undulating Warwickshire farmland on the horizon

The scheme

Three volumes, turned into the woodland edge.

A single-storey house in charred timber, split into three linked forms and rotated so it sits along the treeline instead of across the open field.

The layout

Set into the trees, off the road.

The house sits centrally against the linear tree belt, well back from Long Itchington Road, with the existing access retained and the survey building kept in the south-west corner. A ha-ha, not a fence, divides the garden from the alpaca paddock, so no hard line breaks the setting.

The proposed site plan. Zoom for the meadow, the ha-ha and the retained trees.

The concept

One volume, split, then rotated.

The accommodation was first massed as a single block beside the treeline, then split into three, bedrooms, heart and ancillary, then rotated to lengthen the edge shared with the woodland and open views out to the paddock and the countryside. Splitting them again made the courtyards.

Six steps from a single block to the built arrangement. Zoom for the sheet's own notes.

The plan

Three wings, and the courtyards between.

The bedroom wing, the living heart and the ancillary rooms each take a volume, with the green courtyards drawn between them. Three bedrooms, all en suite, a study, snug, pantry and greenhouse around the open kitchen, dining and living space.

The proposed floor plan. Zoom for the rooms.

The elevations

Long, low, and deliberately dark.

Front above, side below, at the same scale. Solid forms clad in charred timber laid in a herringbone pattern, broken by recessed full-height glazing. The plan is rotated so no elevation faces due south, which cuts solar gain and breaks the view from the church on a corner rather than a flat wall.

Proposed front and side elevations. Flat roofed throughout, so the house sits under the canopy.

The materials

Charred timber, stone, and long life.

The palette is led by charred timber, dark and recessive against the trees, drawn from Japanese craft tradition and chosen for longevity and low maintenance. Natural stone, dry-stone walling and soft plaster sit behind it. The Inspector called the choices laudable, and the panel praised them.

The material board taken to both design reviews.

The garden side

Glazing between solid, dark walls.

From the meadow, in early morning light, the house reads as bands of full-height glazing between solid charred-timber volumes, with the wildflower planting running up to a narrow mown apron at the terrace.

Pre-application visualisation of the Highlands Farm house from the wildflower meadow in early morning light: bands of full-height glazing between solid charred-timber volumes beneath mature trees, with two low sculptural loungers on the stone terrace

At dusk

Lit from within, under the canopy.

At dusk the recessed glazing reads as lanterns between the dark volumes, and the house holds its place under the treeline rather than standing against the sky.

Pre-application visualisation of the Highlands Farm house at dusk: the low dark volumes glowing from within through full-height glazing beneath the treeline, with alpacas grazing in the misty paddock

The challenge

The site answers before the design does.

A test the site had already answered.

Paragraph 84 permits an exceptional home in isolated countryside. The Inspector found this site, bounded by private houses and a poultry business, was not isolated, so the policy the design rested on did not apply.

Talk through your site

Pre-application visualisation of the proposed Highlands Farm home at dusk: the low dark volumes glowing from within through full-height glazing, set against the treeline under a twilight sky, with alpacas grazing in the foreground paddock

The architecture was never the weak point. An independent panel backed the direction, and the Inspector called the house well designed for its locality. It was the ground it stood on, and the policy that governed it, that settled the application.

What we take from it

The locational test comes first. Paragraph 84 exists to allow exceptional homes in isolated countryside. A site on a village edge, however open it looks from the road, may not be isolated in policy terms, and if it is not, the route does not apply at all. That question is answerable in an afternoon from a plan and a policy map, and it should be settled before a single line is drawn. On this site it was the whole case, and it sat underneath four years of design.

Good design is necessary, and it is not sufficient. The test is not "well designed". It is exceptional, innovative, standard-raising. The Design:Midlands panel called the first scheme an exciting, sensitive and ambitious project promising exceptional design and build quality, and said in the same breath that it did not yet meet the criteria and set out what to develop. After the second review the panel found the refined design quietly confident, minimalist and settled within the landscape context, and thought it could meet the test subject to five further items. The Inspector agreed the house was well designed, and still found it not out of the ordinary enough to clear the bar. A scheme can be genuinely good, and admired by people whose job is judging design, and fall short of what this particular policy demands.

The attempt has a real cost, and clients deserve the number before they start. This route took four years, a full consultant team, two rounds of independent design review and an appeal, with no guarantee at the end. We would still take on the right Paragraph 84 site. We are simply more certain than ever about which one that is, and we would rather tell a client the truth early than bill them for a long road to a likely refusal.

The decision

Four grounds of refusal, weighed at appeal.

Warwick District Council refused on four grounds in October 2022. The Inspector dismissed the appeal in March 2024, upholding three. The one he did not uphold was the part the design was built around.

Ground 1 · Upheld

Policy H1, and the countryside principle.

The council said: The design is not of very exceptional quality or innovative nature, and no other exception to countryside housing applies
The Inspector found: The site "cannot be described as 'isolated'", so Paragraph 84 "does not apply in this instance", and judged the design under local policy alone
On the design: "a simple, modern and functional dwelling that has been well designed for its locality", but "not out of the ordinary to take it to the next level"

The heat pump, passive solar gain, charred timber and enhanced insulation were "laudable, but are not particularly innovative or cutting-edge".

Ground 2 · Upheld

Policy DS18, and Green Belt openness.

The council said: Inappropriate development in the Green Belt, harmful by definition and by harm to openness, with no very special circumstances
The Inspector found: A new house in an open field falls within none of the Framework's exceptions, and would cause "a significant loss of openness"
On mitigation: Additional planting and the trees as a backdrop "may well help reduce the dwelling's visibility", but do not mitigate the loss of openness itself

A self-build shortfall of some 66 plots across the district carried great weight in favour, reduced to moderate with no obligation to secure the tenure.

Ground 3 · Upheld

Policy HE1, and the Conservation Area.

The council said: Less than substantial harm to the Conservation Area, by impact on the historically open parkland character, with no public benefits to outweigh it
The Inspector found: The paddock is one of the characteristic green open spaces that positively contributes to the area, and building on it would diminish that contribution
On the balance: A single home, some biodiversity gain and modest economic benefit did not outweigh the heritage harm, to which great weight is given

The site once formed part of the grounds of a village house, and its specimen trees still record that connection.

Ground 4 · Not upheld

Policy NE4, and the landscape case.

The council said: Material harm to landscape character, through loss of the historically open parkland setting
The Inspector found: The building and its setting "would not have a significantly adverse effect on the surrounding landscape character", and no conflict with the policy
Why: Single storey, flat roofed and sitting low; an irregular footprint breaking up the bulk; the mature trees kept as a backdrop; and a dark palette that helps it blend

The appeal was still dismissed. The landscape reasoning went our way; the planning balance did not.