Plans to build more than 100 new homes in Herefordshire’s smallest market town have been thrown out.

Dorset-registered Kington LVA applied in July for outline planning permission for “up to 110” houses on five hectares of undulating farmland east of Kingswood Road, Kington, of which 30 were to be for social rent.

These were to make up over half of the “around 200” new homes which the county’s local plan currently commits to being built in the town by 2031.

KLVA’s application admitted that of the 49 responses to its earlier leaflet drop in the area, most “were not supportive”, with only three backing the new estate.

This was then borne out by responses to the planning application proper, with more than 60 individual objections raising many issues - chiefly traffic and road safety, extra strain on local infrastructure and flooding risk.

Kington Town Council also objected over the road access, which it said would be inadequate for the likely extra 200 vehicles trips a day, creating “an unreasonable hazard to pedestrians and vehicles at the junction”.

Indeed this had been among reasons for previous refusals of “much smaller developments” in the Kingswood Road area, it pointed out, adding that to build 110 would be “overdevelopment” on an elevated site “visible throughout this historic town.”

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Kingswood Road, onto which new access for the estate would have been created (Google Street View, LVA/TIR, from application)

Planning officer Ollie Jones concluded the application “fails to demonstrate that the site can be safely developed without increasing flood risk elsewhere, or that a viable drainage solution is achievable.”

He also agreed with objectors that the extra traffic and lack of continuous footways “would result in an unacceptable impact on highway and pedestrian safety.”

The scheme also fell foul of the council’s obligation not to permit any development that would increase nutrient pollution in the River Lugg/Wye Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

And without a so-called Section 106 local funding agreement between the developer and the council, the scheme “would not deliver the infrastructure and mitigation necessary to make it acceptable in planning terms”.

Outline planning permission was refused.