Village homes plan rejected

A plan to build six houses at a Herefordshire village has been rejected by councillors.

The application to develop farmland immediately east of Eardisland, one of the county’s historic black-and-white villages, was submitted by Darren Staples of local firm Staples UK Holdings.

The three detached and three terraced homes would each have had two storeys.

An officer’s report for today’s (September 28) planning committee meeting recommended refusing the plan, due to its potential impact on the river Lugg special area of conservation and the way it would “urbanise the rural setting of Eardisland and be out of keeping with the established settlement pattern”.

It also lacked of a suitable link for pedestrians and cyclists into the village, nor had “safe access and escape routes for future occupants of the development during a flood event” been shown, the officer’s report said.

Eardisland Parish Council had earlier said the planned houses would “lessen the value of the field as a flood plain”, which is “a major issue” in the village. It also prompted about 70 objections locally.

Proposing that the committee go with the recommendation and refuse permission, Coun Sebastian Bowen said it was “far too suburban” and that traffic on the road into the village “reaches 40 or 50 mph”.

The proposal to refuse was backed unanimously.