A FAMILY may appeal after their plans to build a dream home on the site of a former cottage were dashed for the second time.

Robert Thurlow wanted to build a four-bedroom eco home, garage and workshop, on a plot of land in East Street, Fritwell, that had been owned by his family for almost two decades.

He also planned to create an orchard and pond and develop seven allotments with raised beds on a third of the one-acre site for villagers.

But Cherwell District Council’s planning committee followed officers’ recommendation and refused the application saying it was outside the village’s built up area and would be “harmful” to its conservation area.

A similar planning application was refused by officers on the same grounds last year.

Mr Thurlow, 41, of Price Close, Bicester, said because there was previously a building on the site he should be allowed to redevelop the land.

He said: “There were previously ten cottages there in Colley Close, three are still intact. Colley Close is within the parish of Fritwell.”

His father Dennis, who died about ten years ago, had previously tried to get planning permission for four homes at the same site in 1996, but it was refused and an appeal upheld the following year.

Father-of-three Mr Thurlow, a former rugby captain for Banbury Rugby Club, said: “My application is for one house at the top of the land, very close to the area of a cottage that existed there.

“My father built his own house in Balliol Road and that has always been my dream to build our family house.

“This was my chance to build an eco-friendly sustainable house for my family’s future.”

More than a dozen people wrote to the council supporting the application.

Fritwell Parish Council had no objections, but had two observations over the narrow entrance and village built up limits.

Ward councillor James Macnamara supported the application and said: “I would argue this is inside the village on the basis it’s previously developed land.”

Cherwell’s conservation officer’s report said a building had not stood on the site for more than 100 years and there was no evidence it had been a home and could have been a barn.