BUILDING two cottages alongside the green fields near Dibden Bay would spoil the appearance of the countryside between Hythe and Marchwood, a planning inspector has ruled.

Foreman Homes applied to New Forest Council for planning permission for a pair of cottages on land adjoining Church Cottages at Main Road, Dibden - just a short distance from the site proposed for a massive new dock.

The scheme was rejected by New Forest Council, but the company appealed to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

In dismissing the appeal, planning inspector Martin Andrews suggested that adding two cottages would make the area "more suburban and physically and visually diminish the strategic gap between Hythe and Marchwood."

He added: "A permission in this case would also make it more difficult for the council, in all fairness, to resist other similar applications, which, if permitted, would have a significantly adverse cumulative impact on the rural character of the New Forest Heritage Area."

The site is near the land earmarked by Southampton docks operator Associated British Ports for a huge container port adjoining the Dibden Bay shore of Southampton Water. A public inquiry into that issue ended in December and a decision as to whether it can go ahead is expected within two years.

After hearing of the decision, Dibden and Hythe's Hampshire county councillor Brian Dash, a determined opponent of Dibden Bay, commented: "I can only hope the inspector at the Dibden Bay Inquiry takes the hint.

"We do value the strategic gap and the same values must be applied for any development, big or small."

New Forest Council's planning development control chairman Pat Wyeth said: "I hope the inquiry inspector follows the example of this one - if he doesn't it won't be a question of watching this space, it will be a question of having no space left."