A NEW building to house and distribute hot tubs is planned for land on the border between the Forest and Herefordshire.

The application by Ms A Turner of Leisure Concepts, Tewkesbury, agent for a US-based company, seeks permission from Herefordshire council for a 900-square-metre structure at Homestead Farm, Cothars Pitch by Gorsley, between Newent and Ross-on-Wye.

The move follows a similar bid by Ms Turner in 2021, approved a year ago, to build a storage and distribution building on adjacent land.

According to a covering letter with the current application, her company now needs another storage building, to “enable the business to have all hot tubs delivered directly from the manufacturer rather than require some tubs to be stored at an intermediate location”.

The previous plan was approved and is now largely built – despite Linton parish council objecting at the time that it would “be detrimental to the prevailing landscape character of the area” and “did not meet policy standards due on highway safety”.

The new 10-metre-high, steel-framed building, at the same level and sharing road access with the previous one, would not increase site traffic, yet would give rise to the equivalent of four full-time jobs, the application says. It would be screened by “significant” tree planting and other landscaping.

Comments on the application, numbered 232449, can be made until September 23.