PLANS have been put forward to build six new houses and convert a barn into a seventh close to a Norman castle and the River Wye.

Norton Developments of Wolverhampton is seeking full planning permission for the scheme at a paddock in Wilton Castle Lane, Wilton, at the western entrance to the Ross-on-Wye.

The long two-thirds-of-an-acre site in the Wye Valley AONB is screened by a row of trees from the A40 dual carriageway east of the roundabout junction with the A49.

On the other side of the lane stands the Castle Lodge Hotel, with scheduled ancient monument Wilton Castle beyond.

As well as the AON, it also lies in the Ross-on-Wye conservation area and the Wilton settlement boundary, though the village is without a development plan.

The two-, three- and four-bedroom “vernacular yet contemporary” houses would be faced in rubble stone and painted render, and roofed with natural slate.

The “increasingly dilapidated and at risk” stone-built threshing barn at the east end of the site would meanwhile become a two-storey home, with the upper floor taken up by four en-suite bedrooms.

Based on a commissioned acoustic survey, “noise need not be a determining factor in granting planning consent for the proposed development”, despite its nearness to the busy trunk road, the application says.

Similarly an air pollution analysis found the site “suitable for the proposed end use from an air quality perspective”, it says.

Comments on the planning application, numbered 233384, can be made until January 7.