A Herefordshire farming group has had its plans for a large new apple store thrown out by a government inspector.
EC Drummond planned to invest around £1 million on the new facility at Tillington fruit farm near Burghill northwest of Hereford, complementing its recent investment in new orchards at the farm.
Covering an area of nearly half an acre and nearly nine metres high, the building would have had ten separate climate-controlled stores, along with roof-mounted solar panels and rainwater harvesting tanks.
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But Herefordshire Council planners ruled last June that the building would be “at odds with the local landscape character” given its “significant scale and isolated position”, and it would bring “noise, disturbance and other nuisance” to residents.
EC Drummond appealed against the refusal to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate, leading to a hearing at Hereford’s Shell Store earlier this year.
Now planning inspector C Butcher has backed the council’s refusal and dismissed the farm’s appeal.
They agreed with the council that the proposed building “would inevitably look rather incongruous and dominant within the landscape and would therefore detract from the character of the area”.
Without further technical information on the likely movement of goods vehicles to and from the site, the inspector said they “cannot conclude with sufficient certainty that the proposal would not result in highway safety issues”.
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Nor had the likely noise of goods traffic or machinery at the site been assessed – meaning certainty that the proposal would not impact on nearby homes was lacking.
“Had I only found harm in relation to character and appearance, then I would have concluded that the benefits of the scheme outweigh the harm in this instance,” the inspector concluded.
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“However, the uncertainty in relation to highway safety and living conditions are very important matters which must be given the highest possible weight.”
The farm was approached for comment.
Its chairman Eric Drummond previously said at the start of the appeal: “The government wants British farms to grow more, and we hope the planning inspector will take that into account.”
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