THE fate of a much-contested plan to build more than 100 homes in a village will now be left to an inspector after the council took too long to make a decision.

Wychavon District Council missed the 16-week legal deadline to rule on a controversial 102-home plan for Hampton Lovett near Droitwich which has led to the appeal to the planning inspector by developer Beechcroft Developments.

The appeal means the right to decide on the plan has now been taken out of the council’s hands and the application will now be judged by a government inspector.

More than 50 objections were made by villagers against the proposed homes, which would be built next to Doverdale Park Homes mobile home development and the Hampton Lovett and Berry Hill industrial estates off the busy Kidderminster Road.

Many of the retired and elderly residents of Doverdale Park Homes say that building a huge new estate next to their homes will ruin all the good reasons they moved to the area for.

Other objectors said Kidderminster Road is already congested and would be made worse by the extra traffic if the homes were allowed to be built.

Brian Shanahan, who lives on the mobile home park, said in an objection: “Since this development was turned down some time ago, as far as I can see, all the factors which contributed to that refusal are still the same.

“The added traffic flow that 102 more dwellings will bring to this area has the potential to be overpowering, so I strongly object to this new proposed development.”

A plan to build 144 homes on the same land was rejected by Wychavon District Council in 2018 and an appeal was dismissed by a government planning inspector the next year.

Council planners said the land was open countryside and as it sat aside out the agreed development boundary for Droitwich, it could not be supported.

It is the second time the district council has lost the right to decide on a major development near Droitwich after failing to rule on an “alarmingly excessive” plan to build 100 homes between the M5 motorway and the town’s Tagwell Road.