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The owner of Cefn Mably Farm Park has been told a new storage area is causing “visual harm to the countryside”.
Rhys Edwards said the tarmac-covered patch of land next to the tourist attraction was necessary for the “diversification” of his businesses, and would store farming equipment such as tractors and trailers.
But Caerphilly County Borough Council officers said the scale of the hardstanding area was “not justified” and had been built without planning permission.
The council handled the retrospective planning application because the land sits just inside the county borough boundary – even though the farm park attraction itself is not in Caerphilly.
Case officer Lorna Berrow said Mr Edwards had been given “over a year to provide further information” supporting his application, but officers were concerned there was a “lack of justification for the development in this rural location”.
She said the “significant” development was within the “visually important landscape of Rudry”, and its scale was deemed “excessive and results in the urbanisation of a rural setting”.
“While the local plan supports agricultural development in rural areas, it must be of an appropriate scale and justified by need”, Ms Berrow said, adding officers had found “large areas of unused space” at the site.
Mr Edwards, however, said the farm park and his agricultural business were “symbiotic”.
“I no longer have sufficient storage capacity for tractors, machinery, muck spreaders and trailers,” he said.
“I require space for my crops, fodder, fertiliser and general material,” he explained. “It is essentially a typical farmyard in the early stages, as with other farms in the locality.”
Mr Edwards requested the council’s planning committee defer their decision so he could come up with further information on proposed planning conditions.
But senior planning officer Carwyn Powell said the applicant “has had two years to address the concerns we’ve raised”.
“Numerous requests for further information – that information hasn’t been forthcoming,” said Mr Powell.
“We feel the impacts visually on a visually important local landscape area are unacceptable, they’re unjustified in this location,” he added.
“We see no benefit in deferring this application – we feel there are no conditions we could impose that would make this acceptable.”
A majority of committee members voted to refuse retrospective planning permission, in line with the officers’ recommendation.