Part of a Herefordshire farm owned by the Prince of Wales’ estate can be redeveloped as offices, teaching space and a workshop for a local firm.

Woodlands Farm, on the Harewood End Estate off the A49 between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye, belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall which last September applied for outline permission for a new commercial development in the form of a courtyard.

The new buildings will have “an agrarian design theme” reflecting the buildings they are to replace at the “redundant” farm, according the Duchy’s application.

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Its policy of hitting net zero carbon by the early 2030s means all its new developments must achieve this, including in this case by reusing existing materials, meeting high thermal performance standards and employing air-source heat pumps and solar panels.

Permission had already been granted to convert the existing buildings, though the main Dutch barn is now described as “beyond economic repair”.

The “likely” tenant will be Providence, a security firm already based at a nearby farm on the estate, allowing it to “grow and diversify”, the application says.

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Council planning officers concluded that, with conditional support from all consultees on the technical points of the bid, “the general principle is supported”.

Being a net-zero development “does help to justify the new-build approach over the more traditional conversion”, they added.

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An application to approve further details of the scheme including landscaping is expected to follow.

The Duchy has been working to improve the 900-acre Harewood End estate since acquiring it at the behest of the then-Prince Charles in 2000.

Plans were even put forward in 2004 for a new country house on the site of the former Harewood Park, an 18th Century stately home within the estate. But these were never progressed.