A farmer in the valley below Howle Hill, Ross-on-Wye, wants to add 73 more caravans for seasonal farm workers to the 100 or so already there and increase permission for their use from seven to 37 weeks a year.
Angry residents say no planning permission has been granted for the caravans, although they have been there since 2005.
They say Herefordshire Council is taking no enforcement action, despite being pressured by residents to do so.
Sandra Gibbens, who lives with her husband Stephen on the Ruardean side of Howle Hill, says: “The caravans are in the valley below us, at Cobrey Farm, Coughton. The farmer, John Chinn, has now put in a planning application for 73 more caravans, on top of the 100 or so there already. That is for about 680 people.
“The application is for the 100 existing caravans, two football pitches, a bio-digester and 73 more caravans, and includes a statement of intention to increase the harvest from the present seven weeks a year to 37, which is in a way the most worrying aspect of the whole thing.
“These caravans have been in situ, without permission, since 2005. Planning officers have failed to act, despite being aware that more and more vans are being added each year. We have applied pressure, which has resulted in the new application. We have been told by the case officer that the planning department is also aware that the bio-digester on the site has been installed without permission.
“This is a strung-out, rural community. We have been surprised, but very gratified, at the strength of feeling against this development. If residents living close to the development have been unaware of the plans, we must find a way to let others at Ross etc have their own chance to object.
“This will affect the entire area, not just the people living along this lane. Apparently two small ‘standard’ yellow notices have been placed at the farm, but that is totally inadequate bearing in mind the industrial scale of the application.
“If a new housing development were planned, I do not think the council could get away with placing two little planning notices. And this does amount to a whole new village, albeit a caravan village, complete with two football pitches, for goodness sake, in a once-beautiful valley.
“The public needs to know there will be 173 caravans with four migrant workers in each. That’s 500 to 690 people at the height of the tourist season. Although the development will be out of sight of Ross, it will inevitably affect directly and indirectly everyone living in the area, including the town itself. It will increase pressure on overstretched local services, and must hurt the tourist industry on which so many local people rely but about which none of them have been told. People in Ross should know about this and be given a chance to comment.
“It’s a blot on the landscape, but in fact that is not our main concern. The main problem is the noise. We are all very worried.
“Access is by means of a single-track lane with a hairpin bend and a hump-back bridge. It’s an environmental nightmare.”
A public meeting to discuss the issue was held in Walford Village Hall on Friday.
The application, made in October, is for the permanent stationing of 173 static caravans and associated facilities, for agricultural workers. It agrees that about 100 vans already there do not have planning permission, and says the application is intended to regularise those caravans and extend the site to 173 in all. It also seeks partial relocation and replanning of the site to reduce the visual and landscape impact.
Rhubarb
Mr Chinn farms nearly 1,000 acres, with an annual turnover of £8 million. The main crop is asparagus, and the farm supplies 40 per cent of Tesco’s asparagus and 15 per cent of Sainsburys’. Salad potatoes are also grown, there is a small vineyard and he is diversifying into rhubarb and soft fruit.
Mr Chinn says 75 per cent of the annual turnover is accounted for by operations needing seasonal workers, most of whom are recruited overseas.
The aim of the application is not just to accommodate seasonal workers but to cut the occupancy of caravans from five or six to four per van. They say changes in recent times have meant fewer single workers and students and more mature and married workers.
The applicant says it is increasingly costly and impractical to move vans on and off site at the start and end of the season, and to find storage, which is expensive.
The development, he says, is vital to the viability of the business, which cannot be undertaken without it.