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A controversial plan to build a 450-home estate beside a Herefordshire town has taken a step closer.

A 25-hectare area of farmland south of Ledbury edged by the A417 Leadon Way and Ledbury Road was earmarked as a “strategic” site for new housing in Herefordshire’s draft local plan, the county’s cornerstone planning document which was published for consultation in spring.

This drew widespread local concern, with over 100 residents largely opposed to the plan and its likely impact on existing services and infrastructure making their views known at a town meeting.

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It was also strongly opposed by the town council, which said was “extremely disappointed and angry that planners have proposed a very controversial strategic site, seemingly in complete disregard of existing, approved policies”.

But the incoming Labour government has since said it plans to require local authorities to approve more building plans on their patches in order to meet its target of a million and a half new homes over the current Parliament.

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This would ramp up Herefordshire’s new homes requirement to 27,500 over the next 20 years, with Ledbury, a popular spot for developers, in the forefront.

Now one large housebuilder, Vistry Group, previously Bovis Homes and Galliford Try, has applied (number 242776) to Herefordshire Council for an “environmental impact assessment screening” for the site.

This is often a preparatory stage to a large planning application, establishing whether it will have to be accompanied by a full study on its likely impact on the immediate environment.

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No details of Vistry’s application have yet been published apart from the outline of the site, which matches that earlier proposed by county planners.

Local ward councillor Stef Simmons, who sits on the county planning committee, said Vistry’s agents had earlier proposed the Ledbury site “during the usual call for land that precedes any revision to the spatial plans”.

But now, given the likely changes to national planning policy and their local impact, “everything is having to be re-looked at”, she added.