Plans to put up a telecoms mast the height of a nine-storey building near the iconic Hay Bluff on the Herefordshire border have been allowed following an appeal.

Describing itself as “the UK’s leading mobile infrastructure services company”, Berkshire-based Cornerstone applied in May last to put up the 30-metre radio base station at Coed Major farm, Cusop Dingle, around 600 metres from the Welsh border, in order to boost 4G coverage in the area.

The “slimline lattice tower” was to have three antennas, two dishes and base cabinets, and would be surrounded by a 1.8-metre-high fence.

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Herefordshire Council refused the application, which was made under so-called permitted development rights, in July last year, due to the “particular sensitivity” of its landscape setting, near the Black Mountains (of which Hay Bluff is the northern extremity) and Offa’s Dyke path.

This, planning officer Elsie Morgan judged, was “not outweighed by the social and economic benefits of enhanced coverage in this locality”.

Cornerstone appealed against the refusal, and now government-appointed planning inspector Emma Worley has sided with the company to overturn the council’s decision.

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She acknowledged that, being “significantly taller” than nearby trees, the mast “would appear as an anomalous utilitarian feature… visible from several different vantage points in the locality”.

But she was persuaded that Cornerstone “has demonstrated that there are no clear alternatives which would be preferable, and that the site is the least harmful location available to deliver improved coverage within the required area”.

This outweighed the mast’s impact on the landscape, she ruled.