A butcher trained by Andy Callwood during the 1970s is taking over his shop in Ledbury High Street.

The move comes despite a planning application by a Birmingham businessman to change the shop to a tandoori takeaway.

Tony Steel and partner Lesley Goodhind are redecorating the premises and will open on Tuesday.

Mr Steel, a close friend of the Callwoods, from whom he will lease the premises, has worked as a butcher in Ross and Newent but this will be the first time he has run his own shop.

He said: "I think the site has to be in an ideal location for a butcher's shop, in a beautiful town that has been well cared for. I can think of no better place to trade in."

Mr Steel plans to keep the same suppliers who served the Callwoods. He said: "It will remain a traditional butcher's, because I am a traditional family butcher of the old school."

Andy's son Chris, speaking from the Callwood's shop in Ross, said: "We are very pleased the Ledbury shop will stay as a butcher's."

There has been a butcher's shop on that site for around a century and the Ledbury Independent Traders Assoc-iation (LITA) had opposed it being turned into a tandoori takeaway.