Following a meeting on the subject, Bridstow Parish Council near Ross-on-Wye wrote to the Duchy on August 6 over the condition of the footpath and field, described as “effectively now abandoned”, at Pool Mill Farm in the parish.
And while the tenant had partially cleared the footpath at the local Duchy office’s behest, a promised management plan for the field was never developed or implemented, their letter said.
Having not been grazed for some years, the field is now “a sea” of brambles, weeds including ragwort and dock, and “discarded old baths”, and is now “a major nuisance to the local community”, a “blot on the landscape” and potential fire risk, it claimed.
It urged the Duchy to “rethink what seems to have now become an ‘it is not our problem’ approach” to the farm.
Coun George Barrett said the parish council has yet to hear back from the Duchy. It did not respond when asked to comment.
The 130,000-acre Duchy is owned by the Duke of Cornwall, currently Prince William. Herefordshire accounts for its third largest landholding in the country, with over 13,000 acres and 27 farms.