A YOUNG farmer will be able to move back to the cattle farm where he was raised after councillors permitted a barn conversion against official advice.

Chris Terrett plans to move his young family into the wooden barn on the flood plain near Oldbury-on-Severn once it has been converted into a three-storey farmhouse.

South Gloucestershire Council officers had recommended the proposal be refused for a number of reasons, including the danger that occupiers of the property at Knights View on Shepperdine Road would face in the event of a flood.

But members of a planning committee called the refusal reasons offered “laughable” and said the objection over flooding, submitted by the Environment Agency, could be overcome.

They heard an emotional plea from Mr Terrett, on behalf of his wife Rachel, seven-year-old son Harry and four-year-old daughter Ella.

Mr Terrett said they wished to convert the barn so they could live next to his parents, friends and neighbours in the small but “very close” community of Shepperdine, where his family has farmed for more than 70 years.

“We wish to provide our young children with the same upbringing my wife and I were afforded,” he said. “We want them to understand the importance of the natural environment and farming traditions, whilst being able to instil in them the value of community that we know and cherish.

His voice cracking with emotion, Mr Terrett said: “This is a long-standing desire to bring my young family back to an area that I call home.”

A majority of the nine-strong committee voted to permit the barn conversion, on the condition that Mr Terrett produces a flood mitigation plan with a promise to sign up to the agency’s flood alert system.

The committee also approved the demolition of a red brick barn and the conversion of two other farm buildings into an office and extra residential space.

Officers had no problem with these aspects of the application, but said the barn conversion should be refused for a number of reasons, including poor design and harm to the landscape.

Future occupiers would be bothered by the “smell, noise and disturbance” from cattle and would not be safe in the event of a flood, they added.

The Environment Agency warned “evacuation would be difficult if not impossible” in a major flood, putting occupiers’ lives at risk and adding to the burden on emergency services, members heard.

But Conservative councillors Brian Hopkinson and Sarah Pomfret, who both live on the flood plain, argued strongly in favour of the application.

Cllr Hopkinson said the council needed to support farmers in the wake of Brexit.

Tory member Sarah Pomfret said: “The refusal reasons that are down there, to me, are laughable.”

Cllr Pomfret said, in her experience, the Environment Agency will be satisfied as long as the home is solid and the family receives regular flood alerts and has a safe refuge in a flood.

“Otherwise the whole of Oldbury, the whole of Severn Beach, the whole of the flood plain area should be evacuated, now,” she said. “We shouldn’t let anybody live there.”

As for officers’ objection to “smell, noise and disturbance” for future occupiers, she said: “It’s a farm. What else is there going to be? That’s what the countryside is about.”

Seven of the committee members voted in favour of the application while two abstained.

The planning approval requires the new farmhouse to be a designated farm worker dwelling to prevent it being sold for commercial gain to any occupier.