A controversial move to build 120 new homes in a village near Worcester has cleared one of the last planning hurdles.
Lioncourt Homes is building the homes on greenfield in Rushwick near Worcester and has now seen its final designs backed by planners at Malvern Hills District Council (MHDC).
While already being supported in principle by the council last year, residents in Rushwick were still clear in their opposition to the plan – saying Lioncourt’s latest application had “only intensified” their concerns.
More than 250 objections were made against the first application with many saying the village did not have the infrastructure to cope and another 24 were lodged with the council this time around.
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The ‘reserved matters’ application made to MHDC dealt with the style and layout of the mix of one-to-four-bed homes which will be built on fields to the eastern edge of the village between Claphill Lane, Bransford Road and the A4440.
Rushwick Parish Council and the village’s county councillor Scott Richardson-Brown both wanted to see any developer money put aside for a new play area used instead to improve the village’s existing play area rather than building a new one.
Cllr Richardson-Brown said: “It seems illogical to start to try to divide the village between play areas and this money would be better used to improve and extend the existing area and leave the site as a green open space in the proposed development.”
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A government inspector ruled in favour of Lioncourt Homes in 2021 after council planners missed their legal deadline for making a decision.
The application was put forward in 2017 with discussions between Lioncourt and MHDC meaning the deadline for a decision was pushed back.
But when a decision was still not made months later, the developer appealed to the government inspector over ‘non-determination’ due to the long time it had taken for a decision to be reached.
Once the appeal was lodged with the government’s planning inspector, the power to decide on the application was taken out of the council’s hands.
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