Church Commissioners submit plans for 350-home estate on farmland

AN application to build a 350-home estate on the edge of Hereford has been put forward by a branch of the Church of England.

The 25-hectare site, to the north east of Huntington and bounded by Three Elms Road (the A4110) and Roman Road (the A4103), is currently farmland.

All 350 homes in the outline bid, by the Church Commissioners for England who manage the Church of England’s property assets, are to be for market sale.

These would be split between 24 one-bedroom homes, 73 with two bedrooms, 158 with three, and 95 with four bedrooms.

The masterplan for the site shows the homes split roughly equally either side of a what would be a new linear park.

Described as “the first phase of an urban extension”, the plan also includes a transport interchange, open and play space, landscaping and infrastructure.

It would require a new roundabout on Three Elms Road south of Huntington Lane, and a new junction on the Roman Road between Tillington Road and Bovingdon Park.

Herefordshire’s core strategy, the county’s key planning document which was adopted in 2015, calls for a minimum of 1,000 homes within the Three Elms Western Urban Expansion, “comprising a mix of market and affordable house sizes and types”, with a “target” of 35 per cent to be affordable.

The firm responsible for the extension masterplan says it will comprise “up to 1,200” homes.

A consultation on the plan took place locally last November but the website associated with this appears to have been taken down shortly afterwards.

Herefordshire Council’s planning page for the application, numbered 222138, states: “We are not accepting comments for this planning application.”