Plans for five new houses in Kingsland, described as traditional yet sustainable, have been put forward.

The application by local firm Border Oak Design & Construction sets out plans to develop a three-quarter-hectare field at the northeast end of the linear village, to the rear of the Methodist chapel.

Each of the three-bedroom, energy-efficient, oak-framed homes would have four parking spaces and would be for market sale.

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It would be accessed from Chapel Lane via an existing gated track. Roughly a quarter of the site would be used for a new heritage orchard and wildflower meadow.

Pre-application advice from the council was “broadly supportive in principle”, the firm’s application says, while a preliminary ecological appraisal found the site to be “of low ecological value with the exception of the tree and hedgerow boundaries, which are to be preserved”.

The development could be enabled by the developer buying nutrient credits from the council to offset any additional nutrient load from the new houses into the protected river Lugg catchment.

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A map with the village’s neighbourhood development plan shows the site as outside the settlement boundary but within its conservation area.

However Kingsland is identified in county planning policy as a main village suitable for growth, “largely because of its excellent range of existing community facilities”, which the homes would be “within short walking distance of”, the application points out.

Border Oak has already completed the seven-home Mortimer Meadow development on the other side of North Road, the main road through the village.

Comments on its latest application, numbered 232353, can be made until September 13.