Twin refusals of town housing plans

Two similar but separate planning bids, each to build up to nine houses on the edge of a Herefordshire town, have been refused permission.

Roland Link had sought “permission in principle”, a theoretically faster route to gaining planning approval for housing developments, for two plots south of Bromyard, one to the west of the town’s hospital in Highwell Lane and the other to the east of Avenbury Lane.

Details of the proposals were light, as permission for the two would then still have meant further applications to approve the details of each.

Bromyard Town Council backed the Highwell Lane bid, though it had concerns over “future developments of this nature”, over the safety and access on the “rural” road, and the adequacy of water supply.

It opposed the Avenbury Lane plan outright, calling it “overdevelopment in this predominantly low-density area”, noting its “sloping” nature, and pointing out the narrow single-track lane “is well used by pedestrians but lacks a footway”.

Its junction with the main A44 Leominster-Worcester Road meanwhile already has safety issues which extra traffic would “exacerbate”, councillors added.

Planning officer Edward Simcox concluded that the Highwell Lane site also “is of significant concern from a highways perspective” given the lane’s “substandard” width with no passing places.

As to the Avenbury Lane site, the adjacent river Frome “provides a strong boundary for the Bromyard urban area”, and the proposed scheme would have “an urbanising effect on a largely undeveloped area of land which would harm the character and appearance of the local landscape setting”.

Both schemes also lie in the river Lugg catchment, a protected special area of conservation (SAC), yet Mr Link had provided no information on drainage from the schemes or evidence that they would not harm the SAC’s health.

For these reasons both schemes were refused permission.