A builder’s long-running and locally unpopular efforts to build five houses on the edge of a Herefordshire village appear to be finally over.

Mr C Hatt, thought to be Worcestershire-based developer Clive Hatt, had appealed to the government’s Planning Inspectorate after his bids to develop two neighbouring sites south of Llangrove near the Welsh border were refused outline planning permission.

But now planning inspector Mr N Praine has backed Herefordshire Council’s refusal, ruling that the two plots “would not be appropriately located” given that the village’s neighbourhood development plan requires new housing to be within the settlement boundary, which they are not.

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The plots are also near “high-quality conservation sites”, yet promised bat surveys had not been submitted, while there was also “reasonable uncertainty” about the plans’ impact on reptiles and dormice, Mr Praine concluded.

And he also considered information provided on how surface water draining would be dealt with was inadequate.

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But he did not think that vehicle access in and out of the sites would be unsafe, one of the reasons why the application covering the smaller, western plot had been initially refused.

Herefordshire Council planners refused both bids in November 2022, after one of the plans drew 49 objections locally, the other, 42. Llangarron parish council also “strongly” objected to both applications.

Mr Hatt had previously attempted to develop the sites in 2019 and 2020, the latter also having been dismissed at appeal.