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Search the Public Notice PortalA plan for five large homes at a sensitive Herefordshire spot has eventually been allowed by a Government inspector, following years of planning wrangling.
Hampshire-based WLM Consulting applied in 2025 to develop a sloping site to the east of Ledbury Road in Wellington Heath, a site allocated for housing in the village’s neighbourhood development plan, and just within the Malvern Hills National Landscape (MHNL).
Three of the five detached four-bedroom houses were to have ‘undercroft’ garages, making them in effect three-storey houses.
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MHNL’s planning officer said that despite modifications, the scheme was still “likely to result in harm to the highly distinctive built environment in Wellington Heath and the contribution it makes to the character in this part of the National Landscape”.
Wellington Heath Parish Council also objected, and in February Herefordshire Council refused the application on the grounds that, with its roadside earthworks, prominent garages and ‘massing’, the scheme would look “overly suburban” and out of keeping with the rural settlement and the wider protected landscape.
According to the council, this was the fifth attempt in a decade to develop the site, with the previous attempt by former strongman and film actor Sebastian Abbatiello to build five larger houses of a highly modern design having been refused permission then dismissed at appeal in May last year.
However, this time WLM’s appeal against the refusal has been successful, with planning inspector A O’Neill now overturning the council’s decision.
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The site’s allocation for housing locally “carries with it an acceptance that the character and appearance of the site will change” they concluded, while “a suitably designed landscaping scheme” would “provide a degree of visual softening to the development”.
Meanwhile the removal of two planned detached garages at either end of the scheme during the appeal process “softens the frontage and reduces the suburban appearance of the proposal”, they judged.
The inspector also noted that the overall scale of the scheme was less than Mr Abbatiello’s previously refused plan, with “design and appearance more in keeping with the traditional vernacular of the area”.
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