Buckinghamshire Council wants to add 14 Holtspur Lane homes and a Wycombe Lane property to Wooburn Green's conservation area. Comments close on 29 November.

Fourteen early 20th century houses on Holtspur Lane could be brought into the Wooburn Green Conservation Area. Buckinghamshire Council is consulting on the first review of the area’s boundary since it was drawn in 1971. Comments close at 11.59pm on Sunday 29 November.

Wooburn Green is about four miles south-east of High Wycombe. The council’s draft appraisal says a review of the boundary is “overdue”.

What would change

The draft proposes three changes. All of them add land, and nothing is taken out. (boundary map)

  • Housing in Holtspur Lane. Two groups of houses built as ribbon development in the early 20th century. One is four pairs of semi-detached houses with rendered walls, plain tiled roofs, bay windows and full-width canopies. The other is six red brick semi-detached houses with bay windows.
  • A property in Wycombe Lane. A single brick and tile building with tall chimneys and a former shopfront. The appraisal calls it part of “the gateway into the centre of Wooburn Green”.
  • Windsor Lane. A minor adjustment. Building there has left the old line running across features that no longer exist, so the boundary would follow walls and fences on the ground.

The appraisal is candid about the additions. One of the red brick houses on Holtspur Lane has been painted white, and many doors and windows on both groups are not original. The Wycombe Lane building has lost its windows and had its shopfront altered. The consultants still judge that enough survives for each to add to the area’s “special architectural or historic interest”.

What the area holds now

The conservation area takes in The Green, the former grounds of Wooburn House and some of the streets around them. According to the appraisal:

  • it holds 17 listed buildings, all Grade II, mostly around The Green and the Manor House
  • the war memorial and Wooburn Club are among them
  • the whole area is an Archaeological Notification Area, because of the former Bishop’s Palace and Wharton’s mansion
  • the former chapels in Wycombe Lane and on Holtspur Lane are suggested for Buckinghamshire’s local heritage list

The document also lists what harms the area. Front gardens paved for parking, plastic windows around The Green and on Wycombe Lane and Holtspur Lane, street clutter and shop signs are all named. It also says the recent housing development on Wycombe Lane is “over dominant due to its height and massing”.

What it means for you

If you live in one of the Holtspur Lane houses or the Wycombe Lane property, designation would bring the same rules as the rest of the conservation area. The appraisal says these include:

  • planning control over demolishing the building
  • tighter permitted development rights, for example on extension size, satellite dishes, removing chimneys and front boundaries
  • notice to the council before work on any tree with a trunk of 75mm or more across, measured 1.5 metres above the ground

Repairs and like-for-like maintenance would not normally need planning permission, and nor would most work inside a house, the appraisal says.

The council held two drop-in sessions at St Paul’s Church Hall on Town Lane on 4 and 5 November. Those have passed, but you can still respond:

  • online through the consultation page
  • by email to ConservationAreaConsultations@buckinghamshire.gov.uk
  • by post to the Heritage and Archaeology Team, Buckinghamshire Council, The Gateway, Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury HP19 8FF

After it closes, the council will analyse the responses and may revise the proposals before formal designation. (Buckinghamshire Council)

High Wycombe’s own conservation area is going through the same process. Cabinet is asked on 10 November to add Temple End and three other areas. For other planning in the district, see our planning applications page.