Planning permission has been granted for 12 new glamping pods and three new holiday lodges in the Otter Valley near Honiton.

The new facilities will expand Otter Falls, a holiday park in Upottery that already offers cottages and luxury lodges. The planning application includes parking (including two electric vehicle charging points), landscaping, access and drainage improvements.

The development technically goes against the Local Plan as it is within the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) which prohibits new developments there.

But East Devon District councillors argued that any downsides of the new pods and lodges could be mitigated. They granted planning permission on the condition that the development will not cause light pollution and that the new pods and lodges will be be low enough to be mostly hidden by surrounding trees.

'We're trying to create an environment people can enjoy'

Cllr Philip Skinner (Conservative, Tale Vale) said: "Although it looks like it could fly in the face of some of our policies, in actual fact when you look at it in the grand scale of things it really doesn't.

"What we're trying to create in the AONB is an environment people can enjoy."

Cllr David Key (Conservative, Dunkeswell and Otterhead) said some local residents were concerned by the new holiday accommodation but he did not think the area would be affected much by the extra traffic.

The planning committee, like all EDDC meetings, was held online as a 'consultative' meeting.

As the law allowing councils to meet virtually ended on 7 May, official decisions now can't be made virtually, but once an 'indicative' decision is made by the council on Zoom, it passes to the chief executive or senior officers to make the final decision, although they are assumed to back whatever the committee decides.

The planning permission for the new pods and holiday lodges will, in effect, be rubber-stamped by council officers.