A fresh scheme for four affordable homes on the edge of Cardigan, to all be occupied by members of the same family, has been submitted to Ceredigion County Council after a previous “bonkers” scheme was refused last year.

Sisters Celyn, Sara and Carys Jukes, in an application to Ceredigion County Council planners, are seeking permission for four affordable discounted for sale dwellings, this time bungalows, at Drws Y Coed, Cae Morgan Road, with a fourth home for other sister Mandy Jones; three of the sisters currently living at Drws Y Coed with their parents.

A supporting statement, through agent Harries Planning Design Management, says: “Due to their personal and family ties to Caermorgan Road, it is such that they seek to build homes on the land to the rear of Drws Y Coed.

“This will provide independent living accommodation where they can settle and continue to live, work and raise a family within their local community.”

Planning documents say the proposed dwellings, reduced in both size and design after the previous refusal, are “honest in their intentions, to provide long-term family homes which will be of an appropriate scale to serve their needs, whilst respecting the wider landscape context and neighbouring amenity levels”.

Last August, a previous scheme for four £400,000 three and four-bed detached homes at the site by the same applicants was refused by Ceredigion County Council planners after members were told at a meeting that calling them ‘affordable’ was “bonkers”.

That application was supported by Cardigan Town Council, but concerns have been raised by members of the public on the impact on neighbouring properties.

The application was recommended for refusal on grounds including it went against planning policy as it is in an open countryside location, the application “fails to demonstrate that the proposed occupiers of the dwellings are in real affordable housing need, with [the applicants’] search focusing on properties up to a value of £350,000,” and “there is no real need for the proposed occupiers to live at the application site, and is rather a desire to live close to the family”.

Speaking at that meeting, Celyn Jukes said the Welsh-speaking family hoped to raise their children “in the community that we live in”.

She told the committee of her surprise of earlier coverage of the plans in the local press, the Cambrian News and the Tivyside Advertiser, adding: “But it was pleasing that a lot of people had been supportive of this application.”

Head of planning for Ceredigion Russell Hughes-Pickering raised serious concerns about the size and scale of the initial application, with houses proposed in the circa £400,000 range, describing them as “blatantly not affordable”.

“Anyone looking at the application and thinking they are affordable houses is bonkers, these are not affordable houses: the size of the properties, the size of the plots, the value of the houses; they are just not affordable.”

The latest application will be considered by Ceredigion County Council planners at a later date.