No third time lucky for village homes bid

A plan to build two houses at a Herefordshire village has been refused after locals filed more than 40 objections to it – again.

The bid for outline permission to build on 0.3 hectares of paddock south of Llangrove in the south-west of the county was submitted by a Mr C Hatt.

Contrary to the headline description, the accompanying planning statement said the bid was for “three sustainable dormer bungalows”.

His application said it was a resubmission of two previous unsuccessful bids submitted in 2019 and 2020 – the latter of which was also dismissed at appeal, having also drawn about 40 objections locally.

The most recent application claimed to have “fully addressed” the previous issues for refusal, which concerned vehicle access and drainage.

But Llangarron parish council “strongly” objected to what it called a “speculative application seeking to build on agricultural land with poor access outside the settlement boundary of the village, adjacent to a nature reserve, (which) does not conform with the Llangarron NDP (neighbourhood development plan)”.

Planning officer Gemma Webster noted that since the previous bid, the policy context had in fact shifted way from the proposal being acceptable, as the NDP had since been adopted, and the county’s housing land supply increased.

There were also “significant concerns” with access to the site, while bat and ecology surveys submitted were “outdated”, she said.

Noting the “large number of objections from local residents and the parish council”, she concluded: “There are adverse impacts associated with this proposal which would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of two additional dwellings.”