Neighbour objects to village plan

A retired doctor has refused to provide written consent for a retirement village to be built next door, in a bid to preserve his rural refuge of 40 years.

Summerset Holdings bought the former Jones Berry Fruits property on Blenheim’s northwestern edge in 2019.

The retirement village operator and aged-care service provider filed a resource consent application in December last year to build a $125 million village with 267 villas, cottages and units over four years,

The proposed development was tipped to have a tangible effect on the town’s congested housing market.

Six neighbours were since identified as affected parties by the Marlborough District Council. If Summerset could get written consent from all six, the company could skip the notification period and go straight to the council assessment and decision.

However, one neighbour would not give his approval, and wrote a pre-notification submission to the council in March, asking Summerset to change parts of its proposal.

Southern neighbour Dr John Hedley bought 1.82 hectares from the Jones family in 1981, including a farm cottage built in 1904 that Hedley and his family restored and added to.

Over the years the family acquired and developed 11.2ha of vineyards in the area.

With its private entrance lined with mature trees, the property became a refuge from Hedley’s ‘‘pressured professional existence’’ in the medical field, he said in his submission.

Now retired, Hedley did most of the grape work himself, in the vines between his home and the Summerset property.

‘‘We need our privacy and do not relish providing rural views for others,’’ Hedley said in his submission.

‘‘It’s our intention to remain living in this house until we die.’’

Hedley this week declined to comment further, saying his submission sufficiently covered his thoughts on the proposal.

Summerset intended to put stormwater ponds and a sewer pump station in its southeast corner, and stormwater pipes along the east side of Hedley’s property.

That work was likely to ‘‘butcher’’ his private laneway