War memorial move approved

A Herefordshire village has been given permission to move its war memorial a mile from its current spot.

Dating from 1920, the Staunton on Wye war memorial stands alongside the busy A438 between Hereford and Hay-on-Wye – a spot which has become “increasingly dangerous” for those attending Remembrance Day services, the parish council said in its application for planning permission and listed building consent made in July.

It said the plan to move it to a small plot of mown common land at Doctors Pool immediately north of the village’s primary and pre-school had “one hundred per cent support” of village residents.

The Twentieth Century Society, a statutory consultee on changes to listed buildings including monuments, warned that the move “has the potential to harm the significance of the listed structure… through its dismantling, relocation and reconstruction and through the loss of its original setting”.

But it accepted the need for the move, which it said should be overseen by “a suitably qualified conservation professional”.

Commenting on its own application, the parish council said the new site “will be accessible to local residents, some of whom have relatives named on the memorial amongst the fallen”.

The council’s historic buildings officer said the new spot “would seem a respectful, sensitive (and) a more tranquil location”. There were no public objections.

Planning officer Natalie Sullivan said there was “limited information” on why the memorial had been sited away from the village – though this “would have at the time been a prominent site for people passing by”.

But “concerns relating to the safety of memorial services and the preservation of the asset itself… are only likely to increase in the future if it remains in its current site”, she concluded.

Planning permission and listed building consent were granted.

The memorial consists of a polished granite column topped by an orb, on a rough-hewn plinth with commemorative bronze plates on three sides which also commemorate local men lost in the Second World War.

Its new setting will be accompanied by new paving, benches and flower beds.