Go-ahead for Ross-on-Wye town centre flats

The space above a prominent Herefordshire shop can be converted into two two-bedroom flats.

The plan, for the Samax Antiquities & Interiors store on the corner of Gloucester Road and Hill Street, Ross-on-Wye, is the latest of several bids in the county to convert central commercial buildings partly or wholly into homes.

Samax’ retail space currently extends to the first floor of the building. A separate commercial premises, the Beauty Bar, occupies a single storey extension to the property along Hill Street.

With “very high ceilings”, both the proposed flats would “provide fantastic living space within a beautiful town-centre building”, the application said.

A local housing market assessment has identified “clear need” for town-centre properties of this size, it added.

The conversion would require “minimal intervention to the existing building”, it explained, with two alterations to windows on the Hill Street side and a new roof terrace with a parapet wall for the first-floor flat.

As such, it would have “minimal impact” on the immediate setting within the town’s conservation area.

Minor changes are also planned to the shop front, which “may cause minor harm to the building” – but this “is outweighed by the social and economic benefits of the proposal”, the Herefordshire Council planning officer’s report said.

The lack of residents’ car parking was not seen as an obstacle to the conversion, but bike storage within the flats was made a condition of the permission. The flats must also meet water conservation and efficiency standards.

No objections to the plan were received.