Housing on village site refused again

A plan to build 15 homes, five of them affordable, at a scenic Herefordshire spot has been refused permission.

Lockley Homes of Warwick had sought permission to build the “traditional” houses in Colwall within the Malvern Hills National Landscape.

They were to occupy a roughly square 6.5-acre field immediately to the west of the village primary school and accessed from Mill Lane to the south.

A previous attempt to build up to 37 homes on the site was refused in 2020, then an appeal against the refusal dismissed in early 2022.

The subsequent, scaled-down bid promised sizeable areas would be set aside for landscaping corridors or for use by the community and the neighbouring school.

The five affordable homes were to take the form of a small terrace and pair of semi-detached houses, with the remaining market-sale houses having “generous” outdoor space and large detached garages.

But this too drew widespread objections, including from Colwall Parish Council, Malvern Hills National Landscape officials, Severn Trent Water, and Herefordshire Council’s own transport, conservation and strategic housing officers.

Lockley Homes was “proposing too many four-beds and not enough open-market two- and three-bed units”, the housing officer said, adding that even the two-bed bungalows were “very large”, while none were “realistically attainable for young people or suitable for those wishing to downsize”.

Five public letters of objection were outnumbered by eight in support of the scheme.

Noting that the proposal “favours larger ‘executive’ style housing”, planning officer Adam Lewis said it amounted to “major development” within the designated national landscape, raising the bar for acceptability.

Yet the proposal had not demonstrated that it was in the public interest, as it “failed to provide the appropriate range and mix of housing needed to meet local needs”.

It amounted to “inefficient use of land”, and also lay outside of Colwall’s settlement boundary, going against the village’s neighbourhood development plan, Mr Lewis concluded.

Full planning permission was refused.