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Search the Public Notice PortalA large Herefordshire vegetable grower and supplier has been told it will have to undo changes it has made at its farm in recent years that have irked neighbours.
Based at Rook Row Farm, Mathon near the Worcestershire border, AS Green works with partner growers in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco to provide a year-round supply of fresh vegetables to supermarkets.
To fulfil this, it installed 33 workers’ static caravans at the site some years ago, while adapting a large barn for year-round vegetable processing, which entails regular lorry trips to and from the farm.
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In late 2021 the farm attempted to regularise the stationing of the caravans with a retrospective planning application, which remains undetermined, while its attempt to regularise the planning status of the packhouse was refused in 2024.
Around the same time, neighbour Fiona Bulmer took the unusual step of applying to county planners for a certificate of lawfulness confirming that the farm was for agricultural use only.
This too remains undetermined.
Matters have now come to a head with Herefordshire Council serving a wide-reaching enforcement notice on the farm.
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This requires its owners to cease using the main area of the farm for “non-agricultural purposes, including general industrial, storage, distribution and residential use” within six months.
The 33 caravans, along with separate “containerised accommodation”, are to be removed, along with all utility connections and any “domestic paraphernalia”, within nine months.
Among its reasons for its course of action, the council said the use of a single-track road and nearby junction by “significant” volumes of heavy goods traffic was “detrimental to the safe and efficient function of the highways”.
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The unapproved workers’ accommodation meanwhile amounted to “unsustainable development in the countryside” with a potentially harmful environmental impact.
AS Green was asked if it planned to submit an appeal but the firm’s representative declined to comment on the record. No such appeal has yet been published on the Planning Inspectorate website.
Welcoming the council’s move, Fiona Bulmer said she and other local homeowners “have been objecting against the rapid growth and unauthorised developments at Rook Row Farm for over five years.”
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