PLANS to build five houses alongside a historic country inn are having to be changed, due in part to extra costs from Brexit.
The Grade II-listed New Inn at St Owens Cross west of Ross-on-Wye was given planning permission and listed building consent for the homes in May 2020.
Permission is now being sought (application number 243209) by a developer to alter this owing to rising costs.
Food and farming entrepreneurs the Green family, co-owners of Two Farmers Crisps, succeeded in reopening the 16th-century coaching inn in 2020 after a five-year closure.
The adjacent housing development was intended to recoup the “very considerable financial investment by the owners” in the inn, which has won several awards.
But the development site has yet to find a taker, the new application to Herefordshire planners says.
Dudley-based KR Construction Solutions, a potential buyer, has put forward a revised plan that says the cost of construction materials has risen due to Covid and also “ongoing geopolitical tensions affecting global trade”.
Labour costs “have also escalated, partly due to a shortage of skilled workers”, with Brexit reducing the pool of labour from the EU, leading to wage inflation, as well as bringing “tariffs on imported materials, longer lead times, and increased administrative burdens”.
Stricter government requirements on insulation, heating systems and overall building performance, have also inflated costs, which “cannot simply be added to the end sale value of each property”, adds the application.
The plan seeks to modify the design of houses to include roof-mounted solar panels and air-source heat pumps.
New designs are also for larger homes than those already approved – from one two-bedroom, three three-bedroom and one four-bedroom house, to two three-bedroom, one four-bedroom and one five-bedroom house.
The proposed change “will result in only limited variation to the approved visual impact in how these dwellings sit in relation to the New Inn”, the application maintains.
Comments can be made until March 6.