A plan to build five larger homes linking up two parts of a Herefordshire hamlet has been refused permission.

The proposal for the three- and four-bedroom detached houses along a half-hectare plot by the main road through Glewstone southwest of Ross-on-Wye was submitted by Richard Williams in July last year.

Nearby resident Clare Russell said the proposal “is not solving the local housing problem”, adding: “These are large houses that will likely sell at £600K+, this is likely unaffordable for people on local salaries.”

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An objection on behalf of fellow resident Owen Powell said the plan “would provide a form of generic suburban-style estate housing that is singularly inappropriate to the character of the village”.

Andy Crawshaw said the village has just one bus service a week, the narrow road through it has no footpaths, and the nearby A49 dual carriageway “presents a barrier to safe cycling to Ross-on-Wye”.

Marstow Parish Council also objected, saying that at a meeting, 13 residents had put their concerns which also related to water supply, drainage, loss of “first-class” farmland, increased traffic and lack of local amenities.

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There were no outstanding  objections from Welsh Water or Natural England, nor from the council’s highways and ecology officers. Its landscape officer said the homes “will be the natural infilling of a gap”, though the five together would “change the ridgeline view”.

Planning officer Gemma Webster concluded that this visual impact within the Wye Valley area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), coupled with the loss of a hedgerow, “will have a localised adverse impact”.

With only a “sporadic” bus service, the spot would be “unsustainable, given that there will be an virtually complete reliance on the private car to access daily services”, she said.