Why Hereforshire holiday cottage can’t become regular house

A bid to allow a Herefordshire holiday cottage to become a regular house has been refused.

Permission was given in 2017 to build the one-and-a-half-storey Mistletoe Cottage on the site of a former stables in the hamlet of Kinnersley south of Kington, on condition it was used as holiday accommodation only.

William Evans and Simon Wiles applied last autumn to get rid of the condition, saying local planning policies “are supportive of new residential development used as open-market dwellings in this location”.

Kinnersley and District Group Parish Council supported their bid, and there were no objections from technical officers or the public.

Planning officer Emma Jones acknowledged that Kinnersley was listed in Herefordshire’s so-called Core Strategy, its key planning document, “as a settlement where proportionate housing is appropriate”.

However she considered that the cottage did not lie in Kinnersley, but rather in the even smaller neighbouring, dispersed settlement of Ailey, not listed for new housing and so in planning terms open countryside.

Nothing that had been put forward  about the cottage or its location to indicate it could get round the general block on new housing on such a site, she concluded.

The cottage is still advertised for holiday letting, and has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 on Google based on seven customer reviews.