A new Hereford gin distillery has won an award less than a year after starting production, while also overcoming a planning wrangle with the council.

Rockfield Sprits on the city’s Rockfield Road industrial estate has taken silver in the “classic G&T” category of the People’s Choice spirits awards for its Dry Gin, at an event in Manchester on February 27.

Set up by Paul Scourfield, his wife Sarah and colleague Mike Griffiths, the company has only been in production since May last year, and now boasts a six-strong gin range as well as a spiced rum.

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According to Sarah Scourfield, thanks to a big local push Rockfield spirits are already available in nearly 100 bars, restaurants and shops in and around Herefordshire. It aims to sell at least 20,000 bottles a year.

Unusually, the distillery also offers tasting and gin making classes and professional training as well as an on-site bar and shop.

And it was this diversity of uses that led to a run-in with Herefordshire Council over what, for planning purposes, the premises was to be classed as.

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The dispute hung on whether is new use amounted to a change in “use class”, with the council saying, eventually, that it could not give a lawful development certificate for the distillery under the broad “E” class of commercial operations.

In the end a government planning inspector was brought in to resolve the issue. And SA Hanson ruled last month that the premises’ other uses were “incidental” to the distilling, and that the council’s position “was not well-founded”.

But while the council’s delay in issuing the certificate was “unreasonable”, this had not caused the distillery unnecessary expense, the inspector said, dismissing a bid for an award of costs against the council.