A new bid is being made to turn a disused pub in a prominent Herefordshire spot into a four-bedroom home.

The Wheatsheaf Inn, on the A44 near the village of Whitbourne, has been the subject of three previous unsuccessful conversion plans within the last seven years, each of which were also dismissed at appeal.

The latest application put forward by Peter Styles “is strongly influenced by the decisions and comments made in the previous applications”, and aims to address the reasons they gave for refusal, namely the location outside the village boundary, the loss of a public house, and highways safety.

The fact that the village currently has within its boundary a similarly-sized pub, the Live Inn, formerly the Live and Let Live, should satisfy county planning requirements regarding the loss of a public house, it said. Indeed the conversion would help safeguard the other pub’s future, it argued.

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The new application also aims to address concerns on road safety raised in the most recent planning appeal. It would also preserve the existing appearance of Wheatsheaf Inn, it said.

And though technically outside the village, the proposed home would be near enough to “contribute to the immediate community and provide a family home within the established small settlement”, it said.

An accompanying marketing report dated March last year concluded: “There is no demand for the use of the property as a public house, restaurant or for any other trading business.

“Unless the site is considered as a residential opportunity, it will remain undeveloped for a considerable period of time.”

Last July, Whitbourne Parish Council agreed to gather and submit a petition to Herefordshire Council demanding it take enforcement action to address the deteriorating state of the “eyesore” pub.

But according to parish clerk Kevin Phillips, it then emerged that county planners were already pursuing an enforcement case relating to the building.

“Herefordshire Council did however confirm that the proposed petition had been brought to the attention of the planning enforcement team who were taking the case forward,” he said.

Comments on the application, numbered 230658, can be made until May 4.