Detailed plans for a new 25-home estate next to a Herefordshire village have been withdrawn after getting negative reactions.
Outline permission was granted last October to develop Perry Fields (or Perrys Field) southeast of Wigmore, which lies between Leominster, Ludlow and Knighton, Powys.
This proposed eight homes for “intermediate low cost” and two starter homes, with the remaining 15, including bungalows, being for open market sale.
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A so-called reserved matters application was then submitted in December by a different applicant, Markden Homes of Whitchurch, providing details of the proposed homes, their layout and landscaping.
But these would consist of only two two-bedroom homes, both affordable, the remaining 23 all being of three or four bedrooms, which the council’s strategic housing officer Michelle Powell said did not meet the area’s needs.
Herefordshire Council principal planning officer Adam Lewis wrote to the developer earlier this month saying this was just one of a number of reasons why he could not approve its proposal.
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The submitted plans showed the affordable homes would be “clustered together”, so failing to “create a mixed and balanced community”, he said.
The estate’s layout and design also “fails to make a positive contribution to local character or protect the setting of nearby listed buildings”, and no heritage statement had been provided.
And four of the houses on the plan would overstep the agreed village boundary to the east of the site, where a proposed landscape buffer “is minimal and the new planting incredibly sparse”, Mr Lewis wrote.
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“It’s clear that the issues with the scheme are widespread and cannot be addressed through minor tweaks to the application,” he concluded.
Objections were also lodged by Wigmore group parish council, principally over drainage, and by 12 residents.
One, Helena Leclezio, said that Wigmore was not, as a statement from the developer claimed, “a suburban village on the outskirts of Hereford”, but rather lies over 20 miles from the city.
The developer’s statement also gave the number of proposed properties as 64, “suggesting a lack of attention to detail in the application”, Mrs Leclezio said.
The council confirmed withdrawal of the application on February 21.
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