Planners to consider polytunnel proposals

County planners are set to consider plans next week to cover 91 acres of agricultural fields with polytunnels.

Applicant George Leeds wants to install 11 blocks of polytunnels for strawberry table top production on land at Lodge Farm and Highway Farm off Monkton Farm Lane, in Ocle Pychard.

The scheme also includes plans for the siting of 72 caravan pitches for seasonal workers with a mini sewage treatment plant and worker facilities within existing farm buildings at Lodge Farm.

But residents have sent in more than 250 letters objecting to the plans.

They fear the proposals would hurt tourism, increase flood risk, add heavy traffic to local roads and hurt the environment if approved. They also say the polytunnels would be a dominant feature that could be seen from historical footpaths.

Ocle Pychard parish council has also objected to the plans along with the neighbouring councils of Much Cowarne and Withington.

Clerk Emma Thomas said Ocle Pychard group parish council objected because of the overbearing nature of the proposal, loss of ecological habitats and wildlife and concerns over highway safety on the A465.

Other reasons included concerns over traffic generation in the small community and noise disturbance from the scheme.

She said: “We recognise that there is considerable community opposition to this proposal.

“National, county and local planning policies suggest that developments should protect and enhance the distinctive natural and historic environments, with development avoiding undue loss of visual amenity or impacts on
landscape character and biodiversity.

“A significant proportion of the local community feel that any polytunnels, or certainly this large acreage of poly tunnels, will conflict with this policy.”

Architects working on the scheme say they have conducted a visual impact assessment and have prepared a landscaping plan to form buffer zones.

They say plans are an opportunity to re-create commercial apple orchard enclosures which were characteristic of the historical ordnance survey maps up until the mid-20th-century.

The area within the application site is 159 acres, of this 91 acres will be covered with polytunnels, the remaining 68 acres will be used to provide the seasonal workers campsite, worker facilities, cold storage, access tracks, ecological, landscaping and water management enhancement measures.

Herefordshire Council’s planning committee will debate the scheme at Shirehall at 10am on January 23.