The owners of Holkham Hall have been given the green light to build a grand Palladian-style manor house with extensive grounds close to their north Norfolk estate.

The future three-storey building will be called Creake House and will be lived in by members of the Coke family, who have called Holkham home for more than 400 years.

North Norfolk District Council’s planning committee was split over whether to give permission for the seven-bedroom home off Walsingham Road, between North Creake and Egmere.

Councillor Christopher Cushing spoke in favour of the design, saying it met the high standard required.

Mr Cushing said: “I can’t see anything that could be any higher than that. It certainly does fit into the local environment.

“The amount of work and effort that is going to be pumped into the local economy to build a house of that style is considerable. I think it’s an outstanding building.”

Andrew Brown, though, was sceptical about the plan’s benefit to the area, and said: “I am struggling to understand how this grandiose, imitation period piece feeds into the planning system that we safeguard with a passion for the wider community of north Norfolk and in particular in the Walsingham area which is particularly attractive to visitors.

“I fail to see how the public are going to derive any benefit from its architecture.”

MORE: New country manor could be built near north Norfolk coastAfter the vote was tied at 7-7, committee chairman Pauline Grove-Jones gave her casting vote in favour, saying: “I do appreciate this is a situation where personal taste has come in quite heavily, plus there’s the fact it is an isolated building in the middle of the countryside and that goes against the grain of what we would normally pass.”

The ground-floor plans feature a sitting room, drawing room, dining room, two kitchens, as well as an entrance hall, two lobbies, a boot room and others including a wine store.

There would be four bedrooms on the first floor and a further three on the second floor along with a games room and laundry room.

The grounds will include a formal garden, wildflower meadows and two ponds – one with an island. There would be 5,940 new native trees planted to form 13 acres of woodland area, and there would also be 73 new trees in the garden, and 17 fruit trees in a garden orchard.