A plan to build 10 houses at a Herefordshire village has become the latest to fall foul of rules against increasing pollution in the Wye and Lugg river areas.

Local firm JR Planning & Development has been told that its proposed scheme on a field immediately south of Canon Pyon, which it first put forward in November 2019, cannot now go ahead.

It would have meant two two-bedroom, four three-bedroom and four four-bedroom houses being built alongside the A4110 and the Size brook.

They were all to be sold at market rate – 10 houses being the maximum size of a development before affordable housing has to be included.

A new orchard was to be created between the houses and the brook.

But Natural England said a “habitat regulations assessment” would be needed given the poor state of the protected river Lugg, roughly four miles away.

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And the council’s ecology officer commented: “Any additional flows in to the mains sewer system at this location will generate an equivalent increase in outfall that is a direct pathway for additional phosphates to enter the failing Lugg SAC (special area of conservation) catchment.

“No scientifically evidenced or legally securable nutrient neutrality scheme has been supplied.”

The application received 29 objections locally, and Pyons group parish council also urged refusal, pointing out that the site lies outside the agreed village settlement boundary.

The proposal also lacked enough car parking, and would “encourage parking to be displaced onto the road areas”, the council’s planning officer concluded.

The so-called moratorium on development in much of the north of the county has been in place since 2019.

Herefordshire Council said that at the end of last October it had a backlog of 137 applications for 1,538 new homes in the area waiting to be determined.