Plans have been put forward to build six new houses, and convert an old barn into a seventh, near a busy Herefordshire road.

Norton Developments of Wolverhampton is seeking full planning permission for the scheme at a paddock in Wilton Castle Lane, Wilton just west of Ross-on-Wye.

The long two-thirds-of-an-acre site is screened by a row of trees from the A40 dual carriageway east of the roundabout junction with the A49. On the other side of the lane stands the Castle Lodge Hotel, with Wilton Castle, a scheduled ancient monument, beyond.

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It lies within the Wye Valley area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), the Ross-on-Wye conservation area and the Wilton settlement boundary, though the village is without a development plan.

The two-, three- and four-bedroom “vernacular yet contemporary” houses would be faced in rubble stone and painted render, and roofed with natural slate.

The “increasingly dilapidated and at risk” stone-built threshing barn at the east end of the site would meanwhile become a two-storey home, with the upper floor taken up by four en-suite bedrooms.

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Based on a commissioned acoustic survey, “noise need not be a determining factor in granting planning consent for the proposed development”, despite its nearness to the busy trunk road, the application says.

Similarly an air pollution analysis found the site “suitable for the proposed end use from an air quality perspective”, it says.

Comments on the planning application, numbered 233384, can be made until January 7.