End of the road for Leominster LED ad board plan

A plan to put up an illuminated advertising sign in a Herefordshire town has been killed off after a government inspector said it would be “strikingly alien” and even dangerous.

Hintons Country & Garden of Worcester Road, Leominster applied last December for permission to install a six-by-three-metre LED board, raised two metres off the ground, to display ads to passing drivers.

The firm claimed at the time that the sign would “cause no material harm to either amenity or public safety”.

Herefordshire Council’s highways engineer disagreed, saying it “would cause distraction to vehicles… which could lead to a severe impact on highways safety”.

For this reason, and due to its likely visual intrusiveness, in March the application was refused.

Hintons then appealed against the refusal to the government’s Planning Inspectorate.

But planning inspector Nigel McGurk has now sided with the council, saying the proposed sign’s “imposing height would combine with its prominent location, large size and LED screen to result in it appearing as an obtrusive feature that would dominate its surroundings”.

It would be “a strikingly alien feature, out of character with its surroundings”, he said.

On the safety issue, he said the proposed spot for the sign was “directly opposite a junction commonly used by vehicles of all types and sizes”, with

“little room in the highway for vehicles travelling in opposite directions to pass safely”.

The sign “would draw the attention of road-users in a sensitive location, where any distraction runs the significant risk of placing pedestrians, cyclists and other road-users in danger”, he concluded, and dismissed the appeal.