Butchers plans new borders meat plant

A butchers firm in the Herefordshire borders plans to expand into new premises.

Ben Powell of Country Tastes is seeking permission for a “light industrial unit for packaging and distribution of meat products” at Longmeadow Industrial Estate, Ewyas Harold.

The estate currently comprises five industrial units, two already occupied by Country Tastes. the proposed unit “duplicates the scale, design and size of the other units” and so “will harmonise with its surroundings”, the planning application says.

It will become the nearest unit to the junction of the A465 and B4347 Pontrilas Road. Reconfiguring the estate car park will increase the number of spaces from 24 to 34. No extra access to the highway is proposed.

In January the company also applied for permission to put up a new entrance lobby and glazed canopy and to change the internal layout of its retail outlet on the estate.

Comments on that application closed on February 2 but it has yet to be determined. Ewyas Harold group parish council has given the plan its support but asked that nearby homes “be protected from noise arising from any extra refrigeration”.

Comments on the latest application, numbered 230792, can be made until April 16.