Large country home permitted in Herefordshire

Plans to build a large modern house by a Herefordshire hamlet, and to demolish nearby farm buildings, have been approved.

The application by local couple Mr & Mrs S Day of Yarkhill Court was to redevelop a 2.8-acre site next to Yarkhill’s grade II listed Church of St John the Baptist for their own use.

A former poultry shed and storage shed would be removed. A previous plan to convert the poultry shed into a four-bedroom house has already been allowed under what are termed permitted development rights, leaving this as a fallback option if the new home plan had been refused.

Instead, the new building would be of two sections connected by a glazed link structure, and would be finished in local stone at ground level and in stained timber above, with metal south-facing pitched roofs.

It would be wheelchair-accessible, anticipating the couple’s future needs.

A nearby former apple clamp, given a similar roof, would house a garage and renewable heating plant.

Planning officer Perry Lowson considered the site to be in open countryside outside any defined settlement boundary – ordinarily, a high hurdle for a new housing application to overcome.

But “on the basis that the currently proposed dwelling is to be delivered as an alternative to the Class Q [shed conversion] approval, the proposal is considered to be acceptable in principle”, he said.

A previous new design had been deemed “inappropriate in character” and “detrimental” to the church setting, he added – leading to a revised design further north that would “relate more to the agricultural buildings on site”.

He concluded the submitted plan was also acceptable in highways, drainage, ecological, landscape, heritage and amenity terms.