Plans to build a house on a country estate which were approved by Scottish Ministers on appeal have been refused by planners again after it was 'relocated' to a new site.
Applicant David McMillan was given the go ahead to rebuild a family home on the site of a former schoolmaster's house on the Whittingehame Estate, near Stenton.
The application was originally refused by East Lothian Council planners because it was more than a decade since the original house collapsed on the grounds.
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However Scottish Ministers overturned the decision ruling that the fact a home had been on the land before made it brownfield and allowed a new home to be built.
New plans for a house and triple garage with additional accommodation however were lodged with East Lothian planners late last year which would see the home moved from the original footprint of the schoolmasters house and outwith the boundary of the original site.
Despite receiving 16 letters of support, planners have refused to approve the new location, arguing it could lead to the applicant building two homes.
And they claimed the design of the new larger home was more suited to a modern housing estate than a historical country one.
Rejecting the application they said: "As planning permission has already been granted for a replacement house on the adjacent site and as that planning permission has been implemented, this now proposed house cannot be a replacement for the former house.
"If planning permission was granted the applicant would have planning permission for two houses."
Agents for the applicant had argued that the relocation of the original house site would "offer a better aspect and cohesion with surrounding landscape" as well as having less of a visual impact placing it further away from the road.
However rejecting the application planners took aim at the design of the new house.
They said: "The overall appearance of the house is of a large modern house designed without reference to its historical context.
"The design would be more appropriate within a modern housing estate and fails to understand the context of the designed landscape and the built structures within the Whittingehame estate.
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