PLANS to build ten houses on a local farm have been approved, despite opposition from neighbours.

The scheme at Newton Cross Farm, St Owens Cross west of Ross-on-Wye will be built in a traditional rural style and for sale on the open market. Six houses would have three bedrooms and four are designed with four bedrooms. The whole completed with have 28 parking spaces.

Access to the houses was to be by a new road entrance onto the B4521 to the south.

An historic, but derelict farmhouse at the village crossroads was to be renovated and made weathertight, though not brought back into use for housing, while two smaller farm buildings were to be demolished.

Neighbour Ian Coleman warned that the southern half of the site is sodden with poor infiltration and would be unsuitable for construction or maintenance vehicles or residents’ traffic.

Echoing this, fellow neighbour Ronald Lowley suggested that the scheme would add even more traffic to an already extremely dangerous road system.

But there were no technical objections from consultees submitted to Herefordshire planners.

Planning officer Heather Carlisle concluded that the application made by Cape Homes of Cheltenham made provision for ‘much needed’ housing, given the current under-supply of housing land in the county.

She found no technical reasons to refuse the scheme, which she described as “bespoke and design-led to create a high quality locally distinctive development”.

Among 29 conditions with the planning permission are requirements on drainage, materials, landscaping, external lighting and the inclusion of cycle parking electric vehicle charging points.

The farmhouse lies opposite the Grade II listed, 16th-century New Inn, recently brought back into use. The pub’s owners have their own plans to build five houses on land to the rear, recently amended to make these larger and with more sustainability features.