A plan to build up to 10 homes off the main A49 south of Hereford has been approved, a year after it was submitted.

Mr & Mrs B Crockett put in a bid in last January for outline permission to build the homes beside the Brandon Lodge hotel, on two acres of land currently occupied by a three-bedroom house, Brandon Villa, and a coach-servicing garage.

Using existing access onto the A49, the suggested two, three and four-bedroom houses, whose designs will still have to be approved in a further application, were to be sold at market rate.

The plan would not require any affordable housing or developer contributions for wider infrastructure, according to council planning officer Heather Carlisle.

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The council’s senior landscape officer Mandy Neill objected that the site “is not suitable for residential development” and that the proposal “does not demonstrate that landscape character has influenced (its) design, scale, nature or site selection”.

On a prominent sloping site, “it would not enhance the setting of Hereford,” Ms Neill said.

But Ms Carlisle concluded the visual impact would be “only minor”, and that there would be “opportunities for tree and other green infrastructure retention and enhancement” around the houses.

These would provide “a minor contribution” to new housing in Hereford, “where there is currently under-delivery”, she said.

There is also an as-yet undetermined planning application, submitted in February 2020, to add seven en suite guest rooms to the neighbouring Brandon Lodge.

Meanwhile, a plan by housebuilder Taylor Wimpey to build 230 new homes on 10 hectares of farmland immediately to the north and west of the Brandon Villa site was narrowly approved in September.

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