The Cotswolds village of Snowshill served as the location of Bridget Jones's family home
Those in favour say the slow creep of white uPVC windows, black front doors and cheap pine fences are eroding the charm of the honey-coloured stone cottages, drystone walls and traditional leaded windows which attract coachloads of tourists and ramblers.
Those against the extra layer of bureaucracy say it has been pushed through by a small group of overbearing locals who "want to have more control" and will lead to extra expense and time to carry out work.
Sheila Wilkes, 85, the churchwarden of St Barnabas, has lived in the village her whole life and said she wished the restrictions had come in sooner. "We had asked a parish councillor to do this years ago and he never did," she said. "Tewkesbury borough council has done it now because it needed it. When the black windows and doors were put in [to a holiday cottage opposite the church] people were doing just what they wanted to do."
About half of houses in the village are thought to be second homes or holiday lets, with tell-tale keyboxes attached to many stone doorways, and there are signs of major building works being carried out on several houses.
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Wilkes bemoaned that "everybody seems to want to build bigger and take away all the country cottages and build flashy big houses".
"I just had an argument with a man who is coming to the village and putting in big new gates," she said. "He said they used to be there in the past but I know they have never had gates. Because I have lived here so long I hate change and I think the houses are beautiful as they are and they don't need tarting up."
A more recent incomer, who did not want to be identified, said the planning rules were "too restrictive" and that they had had upsetting confrontations with neighbours while restoring their cottage during the last decade.
They said that those who called for the restrictive planning rules were "just a small group" but it was "those shouting the loudest that were being heard".
They said their property was derelict when they bought it and they had invested a lot of time and money to make it "habitable".
"It has been a very painful process," they said. "If now we want to build a fence or put in a greenhouse it feels like we have already climbed a hill. We don't want to leave our house. We love it here, but it does make you think about it."
The council said the majority of buildings in the village were not listed and were "at risk" from changes that could have a "significantly harmful effect".
Sarah Hands, the council's lead member for planning and place making, said 25 per cent of the village's 50 properties were listed buildings "so we've got a really concentrated area of history and historic beauty there".
She said "changing a window here, changing a door there" could cumulatively "chip away" at the aspects that "make it a beautiful, unique, preserved village".
Residents wanting to replace windows and front doors, build porches or put in roof lights or change their roofing materials will now have to apply for planning permission.
Other restrictions include creating or replacing hard surfaces in gardens, erecting gates, fences, or walls, painting the exterior of buildings a new colour or altering antennae or solar panels.
Grant Brooker, 64, a retired architect who is restoring a 17th-century house, said the rules would stop people using cheaper materials which devalue properties and damage the character of the village. "One of the issues everybody has is to do those things it's an expensive process," he said.
He warned that the new rules would likely put "more pressure on the planner who is already struggling to deal with it all".