Campaigners fight care home plans on green space

Campaigners against a planned new 70-bedroom care home on the edge of a Herefordshire town hope to stop it being built.

Prime (UK) Developments has submitted a planning application for the scheme next to the recent St Mary's Garden Village development by the A40 northeast of Ross-on-Wye.

The Meadow Action Group has leafleted more than 400 neighbouring properties to gather opposition to the care home.

They said it would be built "on a vital piece of meadowland within our garden village that was intended to remain an open, natural sanctuary".

Developer Edenstone, which had its planning application to build St Mary's Garden Village approved in 2019 by Herefordshire Council, had described the land in question as a "meadow with wild flower areas".

Following a public consultation held by the developers in the town in January, the residents sent a petition with more than 200 signatures to both Prime and Edenstone, urging them to "honour" the original planning application.

They claim there are alternative locations for a care home in Ross "which do not compromise our green spaces".

Edenstone Group operations director Chris Edge said the land earmarked for the care home "has never been part of the vast areas of designated public open space at St Mary's Garden Village" and that Edenstone "has never given any guarantee that this land would not be developed".

Herefordshire Council is expected to make a decision on the application by 16 June.

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