AN new 'village' is planned for the heart of North Herefordshire - and the self-contained community is intended to have a cinema, library, surgery, swimming pool, internet links and even a disco.

But no one will be staying long. The 18-acre site just south of Leominster is planned to be a home for about 1,000 seasonal workers, almost all of them from Eastern Europe.

The workers would live in 300 caravans permanently placed at Brierley Court Farm, Brierley, owned by Marden-based S&A Davies, one of the largest strawberry cultivators in the country.

An application for the caravans and the range of facilities that effectively amount to a new village is now with county planners and the application could be put to a planning committee as soon as next month.

Brierley Court Farm was once Europe's biggest hop farm and a key supplier to the Carlsberg Tetley brewery, which produces the Tetley Bitter brand.

Strawberries

At its height, the 400-acre site supplied 30% of Carlsberg Tetley's hops, but last August the company said it was no longer 'commercially viable' to maintain its own hop farm.

S&A Davies bought Brierley Court Farm for undisclosed sum to swap hops for strawberries.

The firm already has planning permission to house around 900 seasonal workers in caravans and accommodation blocks at its Marden base.

Most of the workers come from Eastern Europe and are employed under the Student Agricultural Workers Scheme that lets them stay on-site for a fixed 12 weeks over strawberry picking season.

Intended to be entirely self-contained, the Brierley Court community would have a cinema, a football pitch and three volleyball courts, a swimming pool, a sauna, a surgery, a library, a shop, internet links and a disco among its amenities.

A new link road to the 'village' already has the go-ahead as permitted development.

Graham Neal, managing director of S&A Davies, said: "The development of Brierley Court was a great opportunity for agriculture in Herefordshire."