Smaller village homes planned in Gorsley

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Wednesday, 20 October 2021 08:31

By Gavin McEwan - Local Democracy Reporter

An application has been made to build 25 “smaller” houses, 10 of them affordable, in a field at a south Herefordshire village.

The proposal would consist of “bungalows and small houses” each with two or three bedrooms on a 1.75-hectare paddock north of Lovers Walk in Gorsley, near Ross-on-Wye, according to the bid by Coombes Everitt Architects for KH Developments, both of Cheltenham.

The application says that the proposal is in line with wishes of the parish and county councils to provide “a desired mix of suitably-sized smaller homes on the site”.

Being designed as either single-storey “or have the appearance of being single-storey”, the planned homes would “have limited visual impact”, it adds.

Outline permission was granted for nine larger houses in the field in 2019, after an initial refusal by Herefordshire Council was overturned by a government-appointed planning inspector.

The council said at the time that the proposal “would have an unacceptable impact upon highway and pedestrian safety and expose pedestrians to unnecessary risk”.

But the inspector said proposed amendments to the road and footpath access meant the plan “would not result in harmful highway issues or in unsafe routes for pedestrians”.

The new proposed layout “respects the principles of the (earlier) approved development with vehicular access and pedestrian connectivity retained”, the architects said.

The developer has recently completed two other developments in Gorsley – nine houses at Chapel View and 11 larger homes at Chapel Green on the opposite side of Chapel Lane.

Comments on the latest application can be made to the council until 11 November, which will then decide whether to approve it by the start of January.