A SECTION of historic railway embankment can be levelled to provide access onto a town industrial estate, planners have agreed.

The stretch of embankment near the Ross-on-Wye Morrisons supermarket on the Broadmeadows Industrial Estate dates back to the 1850s when the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway began carrying freight and passengers.

Camanoe Estates want to put in a 7.3m wide access road linking Millpond Lane to the western side of the estate and to install a concrete pad on the site of the southern slope for two portable cabins.

The eastern part of the embankment was recently removed without planning permission, but the council said they would not be pursuing enforcement action as “it would not be in the public interest to do so”.

Planning permission was later granted retrospectively for the works and the installation of an agricultural wholesale building.

A Herefordshire Council planning report on the new scheme said: “The proposal would entail the loss of a further section of the railway embankment and the installation of a roadway.

“Whilst the loss may be considered regrettable, neighbouring sections have already been lost and with the surrounding context in mind, it is not considered unduly harmful.

“The proposal looks to make use of a redundant parcel of land which would increase the efficiency and vitality of the surrounding employment land within Ross.”

The original rail line was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1862 and converted from broad gauge to standard gauge in 1869.

The Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway ran for more than a century before closing to passengers on November 2, 1964.