A plan to build five houses in a Herefordshire hamlet has been approved despite being opposed by “all” its current residents.

Colin Andrews applied in late 2021 to build the two-, three- and four-bedroom homes, one a bungalow, on farmland east of Curates Cottage, in the dispersed settlement of Hatfield between Leominster, Bromyard and Tenbury Wells.

Hatfield parish council objected to the plan, saying it was “not in keeping” with the village, which lacks facilities and has only a single-lane C-road through it that “could not sustain the extra traffic the houses would produce”.

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These and many other objections, ranging from poor soil permeability to light pollution, were also put forward in 55 submissions from members of the public.

Ward councillor Bruce Baker asked that the application be decided by Herefordshire Council’s planning committee, given it “has created a great deal of concern and upset among local residents”.

But planning officer Ollie Jones recommended that councillors on the committee approve the scheme, given that the village, which lacks an agreed settlement boundary, is identified in local policy as suitable for new market housing.

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The plan would not cause visual harm or impose on neighbouring properties, nor were there “insurmountable concerns” over road safety, drainage or ecology, his report for the meeting said.

Mr Andrews told the committee that his scheme would bring 500 metres of new hedgerow and over 100 new trees as well as a new orchard by the proposed drainage mound, “so the scheme will be better than nutrient-neutral”.

But Coun Baker called it “the wrong scale of development in the wrong place”, which was “opposed by every resident in the hamlet” – several of whom attended the meeting in person.

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Coun Liz Harvey on the committee said that over half of all development in Herefordshire since its overarching local plan came into force in 2015 “has been in rural areas, and Ledbury” and that rural areas “remain at risk of unsympathetic development”.

“But with the policy framework we have, I struggle to find grounds to refuse this,” she said – which Coun Stef Simmons, proposing approval, agreed with.

This proposal to grant planning permission was carried.