A plan that would enable a flood-damaged Herefordshire country pub closed for over three years to reopen has been rejected.

Mr J Leonard applied for permission to build 12 holiday “lodges” to the rear of the Temeside Inn at Little Hereford, on the A456 between Tenbury and Ludlow, which he said would “help to secure its long-term future as a viable local pub”.

Set in around half an hectare of grounds, the pub shut in 2020 after being damaged in flooding from the river Teme which runs alongside it.

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Brimfield and Little Hereford group parish council said that while not opposed to lodges in principle, it felt that 12 was “too many” given the “dangerous” road access onto the A456.

“The parish council and local residents would very much like to see the pub re-open, but feel that perhaps four glamping pods would be more suitable at this site,” they said.

The Environment Agency said that with five of the proposed units apparently in flood zone 3, the highest of its flood risk designations, the scheme went against local planning policy “by increasing flood risk without providing betterment or flood storage measures”.

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And Herefordshire Council’s own ecology officer James Bisset said that with the Teme already in “unfavourable” condition due to nutrient pollution, he could not support any development which led to new “nutrient pathways” into it.

A site of special scientific interest (SSSI), the river is home to otters and other protected species, the impact on which would need to be made clear, he said. Yet an ecological report mentioned in the application “does not appear to have been supplied”.

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Planning officer Ollie Jones said he was had not been convinced by the application that future users of the lodges would be safe from flooding.

Nor had it made clear how additional nutrient flows into the river, or harm to the protected species living in it, would be prevented, he said.

Outline planning permission for the proposal was refused. The decision can be appealed within six months.

Mr Leonard was approached for comment.