A Herefordshire town should not be made to take a further 1,500 new homes, its representatives say.

Ross-on-Wye Town Council was responding to a consultation on Herefordshire’s draft local plan, which will set the county’s overall planning aims until 2041.

The town council has written to tell Herefordshire Council that with no a railway station and “poor” public transport, the new homes will lead to increased car use.

Ross is also the only one of the county’s five market towns to lie in an area of outstanding natural beauty, or AONB, it points out - although two of the three proposed housing areas are outside this.

The town council also says the new homes would worsen pollution in the river Wye, “which has recently been increasing dramatically”, and would spill over the town’s settlement boundary, so “disregarding” its neighbourhood plan which was only passed by residents last year.

It says the town has already met its obligation under the current plan to provide 900 new homes – which “hasn’t been taken into account” in the new plan.

Herefordshire Council has already cited “poor connectivity” as a reason for refusing development east of the A40, the town council adds.

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The new local plan, which is currently being consulted on across the county, will determine where a further 11,100 homes, in addition to those already permitted to be built, should go over the next two decades.

It currently favours a proposal that Hereford should get 3,900 new homes, with Leominster to get 1,700; Bromyard, 650; Ledbury, 600; and Kington, 250, with a further 2,500 allocated to 50 village and rural areas.

According to the consultation document, around 680 homes have already got the go-ahead to be built in Ross; the 1,500 are in addition to these.

It adds that 110 homes were built in the town in the year to April.

The 2011 census showed Ross-on-Wye had 5,054 households.