Further setback for Herefordshire grower Allensmore's expansion plans

Allensmore Nurseries of Tram Inn west of Hereford had sought an assurance that it could go ahead with building a reservoir from which to irrigate its open-grown roses, without full planning permission.

On a field off Brampton Lane near Madley, the reservoir would cover over a hectare, be five metres deep, and when full would store over 30,000 cubic metres of water, as much as eight Olympic swimming pools.

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It would be “part of a highly sophisticated water management system that harvests and re-uses water on a cyclical and sustainable basis”, the firm’s application said.

The reservoir had been part of a larger expansion plan for which the planning application was withdrawn last November after officials raised concerns over its likely environmental impact.

But Herefordshire Council’s planning officer Rebecca Jenman has now said that the reservoir plan alone could still impact on local views and the likelihood of flooding locally.

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The nursery’s application “has not made provision for any landscape buffer, mitigation or enhancement which would enable the reservoir and proposed track to integrate into the landscape”, she said.

Nor had details been provided of how the project would avoid increasing the risk of flooding, or of its “highly sophisticated water management system”.

A full planning application will therefore be required, “so that the impacts on the landscape character and visual amenity and on surface water flooding can be adequately considered”, she concluded.

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The nursery also plans to convert some of the field for growing roses, both in the ground and in pots. But in planning terms this would not constitute a change of use of the farmland, Ms Jenman added.

The nursery’s managing director Mark Taylor earlier said that its larger expansion plan “would have provided new employment for at least 25 local staff”.

Allensmore already employs around 100 permanent employees and a further 100 seasonal workers.