Decisions due on Hereford museum and Colwall housing estate

The £18-million project to transform Hereford’s museum and art gallery is expected to get the final go-ahead from Herefordshire Council’s planning committee on Wednesday (July 17).

The proposal would greatly expand the museum area at the grade II listed building in the city’s Broad Street, as well as featuring education space, galleries, café and rooftop viewing area.

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But documents published in response to the planning application, made by Herefordshire Council to itself in February last year, include many issues raised by its own historic building officer Debra Lewis, her latest submission last month running to 30 pages.

With some of these issues having already been resolved with the architects, Ms Lewis has withdrawn her objection to the plan. But she remained concerned that some of the insulation measures proposed in giving the building a high sustainability rating, would obscure architectural features of the building’s Victorian interior.

Recommending that the committee approve the scheme, planning case officer Heather Carlisle has proposed ten conditions, including a requirement for staff bike storage and a limit on its eventual opening hours to between 8am and 10pm, and till 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

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More controversially, the committee will also decide on a proposed 36-home estate in Colwall, between Ledbury and Malvern. This has drawn over 300 public objections, mainly over issues of drainage, traffic, visual impact and loss of biodiversity, since it too was first proposed in February last year.

Rosconn Strategic Land proposes a mix of housing, some of it classed as affordable, on an L-shaped plot of farmland south of Old Church Road in the village, which lies within the Malvern Hills national landscape (formerly, area of outstanding natural beauty).

Planning officers are again recommending that councillors approve the scheme, but are proposing 35 conditions covering everything from landscaping (which must incorporate existing tramlines on the site) and a new section of pavement on Old Church Road, to drainage and water efficiency measures.