Decision on 540-home city extension looms
It is set to be decided next week
A plan to extend Hereford by building up to 540 new houses in an area described as “susceptible to flooding” will be decided on next week.
Bloor Homes applied a year and a half a go for outline permission to build on 44 hectares of farmland immediately south of the Lower Bullingham area, where some industrial buildings would be demolished.
To also include employment land, a community hub and public open space, the scheme was to be just the first phase of the Southern Urban Expansion to the city proposed in local planning policy.
If approved, the actual design of the site and its buildings would then follow in a later application.
The bid has drawn around 50 public objections – considerably fewer than the 1,700-plus who opposed the plan for 265 new homes between the east of the city and Lugg Meadow, which planners refused last December.
Hereford City Council, Lower Bullingham Parish Council and Callow & Haywood Group Parish Council have restated their opposition to the Lower Bullingham plan, chiefly over its impact on local roads and the area’s historical susceptibility to flooding.
But in a 180-page report recommending the county’s planning committee of councillors approve the bid when they meet next Wednesday, chief planner Heather Carlisle concludes that, following a number of commitments from the developers, “there are no highway or transport grounds on which to refuse the application”.
Also the scheme “would not increase flood risk within (neighbouring) areas already identified as being susceptible to flooding”, and indeed it “incorporates measures that contribute to flood risk reduction”.
In all, 35 per cent of the houses within it would be classed as affordable, split between social rented and “intermediate” units, with priority for these given to those with a local connection.
A bid for outline permission by Bloor for a larger scheme in the same area, to include up to 1,300 new homes, was submitted in 2020 and remains undetermined.
Following the cancellation of the Southern Link Road in 2021, “discussions confirmed that a proposal for up to 540 dwellings and around five hectares of employment land could be delivered in advance of any bypass, link road, or wider strategic highway improvements”, Ms Carlisle’s report explains.