The Inspector refused to grant planning permission on appeal for the proposed scheme by developer Countryside Properties after Maldon District Council rejected the plans in August last year.
The Inspector said in her report (13-page / 162KB PDF) that the proposed scheme would cause harm to the conservation area it was located within, including a former pumping station on the site which was now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and to the landscape character of the countryside.
She said that he layout of the site, with the houses spread evenly in a "fairly informal manner" across the site, would make "little reference to the loose knit linear form" of the village of Langford and would result in a "significant and adverse" change to its parkland character.
"The development would not be an urban extension and the higher density areas of housing would not be related to an established town streetscape, which would normally be expected to contain a variety of building types in varying uses," she said.
The Inspector added that the development would lack cohesion and legibility and would fail to establish "either a sense of its own individuality or create a recognisable link with any existing nearby character area".
The Inspector noted that the site was allocated as employment land in the Council's local policies and that the Council had raised concerns that the site was the only suitable location for a high quality business park within the district.
However, she said that there was still land available at Oval Park for employment use and that there would be other sites able to be developed for high tech industrial and office development. "I consider that it is no longer necessary to safeguard the whole of the remainder of the Oval Park site for that use and this should not be a reason for refusing planning permission for the proposal," she said.
The Inspector identified a number of benefits to the proposals, including the contribution it would make to the Council's five year housing supply; its affordable housing contributions and improvements to the sustainability to the site which included public transport improvements.
However, she said that the harm which the design of the scheme, in particular its scale and layout, would cause to the character and appearance of the conservation area and wider landscape was not outweighed by the benefits.
"I consider that the harm to the heritage assets could be avoided if the design and layout of the scheme was of an acceptable quality and I conclude that the benefits of providing housing on this site could equally be achieved by a scheme that meets the required design policy background," she concluded.
