Nearly 1,000 homes a year are due be built in Herefordshire in each of the next five years, despite snags hitting some of the county’s biggest planned estates.

According to Herefordshire Council’s newly published Five-Year Housing Land Supply Position Statement, progress on these stands as follows:

  • The first two phases of the Holmer West development north of Hereford, totalling 299 homes, have been completed, while two further approved phases amounting to 157 homes have yet to begin.
    Bloor Homes’ bid at the start of this year for a 105-home extension to the development has yet to be approved.
  • Permission for Hereford’s western expansion of up to 1,200 homes at Three Elms was first sought in 2016, but this assumed new transport links under the western bypass project, cancelled in 2021.
    The Church of England, which owns most of the land, then submitted a scaled-back application for 350 homes in July last year – but as this has yet to be decided on, it is not included in the council’s projections.
  • Cancellation of the southern link road meanwhile impacted the city’s planned southern expansion at Lower Bullingham, for which Bloor Homes submitted an application for 1,300 homes in late 2019.
    An application for a smaller scheme of 540 homes has now come forward in the last month, 132 of which are expected to be built within the five-year period.

  • Hereford city centre, particularly land north of the historic core “unlocked” by the Station Approach link road, is expected to deliver 248 more homes by 2031.
  • Building of 210 homes at Hildersley, Ross-on-Wye continues after permission was granted to David Wilson Homes, part of the Barratt group, in March last year.
  • Work has also begun this year on land north of Ledbury Viaduct, where Bloor Homes was granted permission for 625 homes on appeal by the Secretary of State in 2021.
  • At Hardwick Bank, Bromyard, 250 homes were earmarked in the county plan, but an application in 2017 by Bovis Homes proposed twice that - since scaled back to the original figure in a bid submitted this May.
    Previous issues of phosphate pollution, water and viability “are close to being resolved”, opening the door to building starting in early 2025, the council’s report says.
  • Lack of progress on an east-west link road around the town has meanwhile held up the proposed Leominster Southern Expansion, which is now “not expected to deliver in the short term”, the council says.

The Government requires local authorities to produce yearly position statements indicating whether have five years’ supply of “deliverable” new homes compared to their anticipated housing needs – otherwise they can be obliged to also approve developments on unallocated land.

Herefordshire's new statement anticipates 4,915 new houses in Herefordshire over the period, yielding a housing land supply figure of 5.84 years.