A plan to build a three-storey block of five one-bedroom flats in a Herefordshire town has been put forward again.

Ian Power of Llangrove has applied for planning permission to put up the new red-brick building behind the Mail Room pub on Gloucester Road, Ross-on-Wye within the town’s conservation area. Road access would be from Old Gloucester Road to the rear.

The application is a resubmission of Mr Power’s previous bid, approved in April 2020 but which has now lapsed.

A representative of JD Wetherspoons, which operates the Mail Room pub, claimed in response to the previous proposal that the spot was “unsuited for residential development, and no amount of justification or revision to the plans will remedy [this]”.

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This earlier application was itself an amended resubmission of a 2015 bid, refused at the time on grounds of likely internal noise problems and parking issues.

Ross-on-Wye town council objected to the revised plan, saying it still suffered from these issues.

But the council’s planning officer concluded at the time that any adverse impacts from the proposal did not outweigh the benefits of new housing.

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The two ground-floor and two first-floor flats presented in the current application would each have an internal floor area of 38.4 square metres, just above the national minimum of 37 sq m, while the second floor flat would be of 49.5 sq m.

Lying within a short walk of the town’s shops and other facilities, the flats are “intended for owners or tenants who do not use private motor vehicles”, Mr Power’s application says, adding that residents would be legally prevented from applying for parking permits “in perpetuity”.

A noise management plan submitted with the earlier approved bid “will be fully complied with”, it adds.

Comments on the resubmitted application, numbered 230743, can be made until June 2.