Campaigners have cautiously welcomed East Herts Council’s refusal of planning permission for a new home in Thorley Lane East Woods. The Planning Consultancy Ltd, based in Buntingford, had proposed a ‘passive house’ with up to four bedrooms on part of the three-hectare (7.4-acre) site Green Belt site, promising the development would “provide funds to revitalise the woodland to make it a usable space for the surrounding community”. While three people supported the scheme, hundreds of residents, the town council, Hertfordshire Ecology and the district’s landscape officer opposed the application w…