A WORCESTERSHIRE restaurant owner has agreed to dig up a concrete road in front of his pub after falling foul of planning regulations.

The road had been laid across common land without planning permission during some renovations to the Gurkha Knight in Kempsey.

Manager Rupak Paudyal has said he will remove the offending road after planners received objections from the parish council.

The row broke out after the Gurkha Knight, in Bestman's Lane, was given permission for a refurbishment and extension in June 2006.

When the work was done, councillors and Malvern Hill District Council officers decided some elements of the improvements did not match the plans that were agreed.

Since then, the pub owner has submitted two further applications for more work which included requests for planning consent for some of the work already carried out. Both have been refused.

A third application for a single-storey extension including storage and a new toilet was submitted in March. Parish councillors have strongly objected to the latest plan on the grounds that red tiles do not meet a planning condition that any new building materials are in keeping with existing ones.

They have also said a red brick wall should be painted white and the porch and front of the building should be reinstated to their previous condition using building materials which match the originals.

Parish councillors also wrote to Malvern Hills District Council to say they were concerned that the common land should be returned to its previous state.

However, Mr Paudyal said: "Regarding the road outside, there was a big ditch there.

"We tried to make the common better.

"It was already a tarmac road there and we put some concrete on top to make it smoother.

"We will take it out and put it back to how it was."

He said he intended to remove bay windows he had installed and return them to the original shape.

And he said he believed the red tiles would turn black within a few months due to wear and weathering.