Historic pub’s refresh plans knocked back

Plans to repaint a prominent and historic Herefordshire pub and change its external lighting have been refused permission.

Owners of the Man Of Ross Inn, at the junction of Wye Street, Wilton Road and Edde Cross Street, Ross-on-Wye, had sought listed building and advertisement consents to change its external colour from pistaccio to a deep purple-grey, and to illuminate the building and its signage differently.

But Herefordshire Council’s historic buildings officer Debra Lewis said described this as “not a traditional paint colour, nor representative of the traditional colour palette of Ross-on-Wye”.

The application also failed to make clear “if the existing paint is to be removed, the cracks repaired, and the type of paint proposed, i.e is it breathable”, she said.

She also felt the proposed lighting on the Edde Cross Street side of the pub “merely adds to the congestion on this elevation”, while the LED floodlighting proposed for the front would be “crude… and not appropriate for a building of this age or quality”.

Planning officer Gemma Webster agreed that “insufficient information” had been given on the question of the paint, and that the proposed lighting “would not protect or conserve the character or setting of the grade II listed building”.

The application had also brought to light an “insensitively sited” ventilation flue and alarm on the Edde Cross Street side of the pub, for which no listed building consent appeared to have been granted – an oversight Mrs Webster advised the pub to rectify “immediately”.