Owners of pink cottage told to paint it white (From Ledbury Reporter)

Owners of pink cottage told to paint it white

9:40am Saturday 6th February 2010

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A PLANNING inspector has ruled that a cottage painted pink without necessary listed building consent must be repainted white within three months.

The appeal by James Rogers was against a listed building enforcement notice issued by Herefordshire Council which required the grade II listed Rose Cottage at Acton Green, Acton Beauchamp, to be painted white. The notice was issued on July 6, 2009.

The owner of the cottage also appealed against Herefordshire Council’s refusal to grant listed building consent for the painting of the exterior.

Both appeals were dismissed and the owner of the cottage now has three months to return the cottage to a white colour. Planning inspector Colin A Thompson said in his decision: “The present pink painted panels and walls of the appeal cottage have to my mind significantly altered the building’s appearance, both intrinsically and in its wider context as part of the rural landscape.

“The colour Rose Madder may be attractive in the right context and small doses but, as used here, in such a comparatively large area, it is visually prominent to the point of being jarring and overwhelming,” he added.

“Most modest rural cottages, like this one, have been likely to have had their exterior walls lime-washed (white) originally but there is a strong tradition, going back some 150 years or more, for these older rural timber framed domestic buildings in Herefordshire to be painted black (for the timber frames) and white (for the intervening panels).

“This characteristic was obviously apparent from travelling around the county and in what I saw from the results of the council’s search for this type of building in rural Herefordshire,” he added.

The appeals were heard at Hereford Town Hall on January 26, 2010.

John Stagg, Herefordshire Council’s building conservation team leader, who attended the appeal hearing, said after the decision: “I am pleased that our original decision has been upheld by the planning inspector.

“As a council, we seek to ensure the distinctive character of Herefordshire is retained and the large number of black and white timber framed houses is an essential part of that and very important to the tourism industry.

“The inspector has visited the site and other areas in Herefordshire and obviously agreed with our views about the paint colour damaging the cottage’s special historic character,” he added.

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