AN ATTEMPT to make a Herefordshire man remove two holiday mobile homes from a former golf course has been abandoned, in a second reversal for county enforcers at the site.

Last December, Herefordshire Council issued Russell Stevens of Brockington Golf Club, between Leominster and Hereford, with an enforcement notice giving him four months to remove the two “unauthorised” static caravans.

Lying outside the boundary of the neighbouring village of Bodenham, the incomplete caravans were “not in keeping with the area” and would offer residents “very poor amenities”, the notice said.

But Mr Stevens appealed against the notice to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate, claiming the caravans were covered by a planning permission dating from 2010 and revised in 2011, for five “holiday lodges” at the site.

While this point was not formally conceded by either the council or the inspector, on October 22 the council’s planning enforcement officer Sam Chesterton wrote to the inspectorate saying its original enforcement notice “has now been withdrawn”.

Planning inspector Adewale Ajibade then confirmed he would take no further action on the case.

A Herefordshire Council spokesperson said: “We are currently reviewing this case and are unable to comment further at this stage.”

Mr Stevens said that while work on the lodges – effectively static caravans with timber cladding – had previously been put on hold, he would now continue to ready them for holiday use.

The case is the second in short succession in which the council has failed to enforce measures at the former golf club site.

Last year it demanded that a section of hedge that had been removed to allow a new road access onto the A417 be reinstated.

But last month another planning inspector quashed this enforcement notice, saying that the council’s had erred in focusing on the hedge removal, which was not “development” in planning terms.

The golf course closed three years ago when its operators, tenants of Mr Stevens’, withdrew after 20 years. Reinstating the course “would not now be viable”, he said.

Instead he is now looking into developing the former course site for up to 50 houses, and plans to resubmit a proposal for this to Herefordshire Council’s next call for sites as it seeks to meet its new higher housing target.