A much-criticised move to build a home in a garden has now been approved by councillors.

Worcester City Council’s planning committee approved an application to build a new home in the garden of another home in Drake Avenue in Dines Green – two months after delaying a decision.

Critics of the plan by Fabio Hassan maintained it was trying to unnecessarily squeeze a new family home into a garden – with Cllr Alan Amos calling the new building a “hideous, ugly monstrosity.”

“If we allow a massive great house to be built in a garden just because there’s a garden, then we need to question why we are here,” he said at the planning meeting in the Guildhall on October 19.

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“In my opinion, it’s a hideous, ugly monstrosity and I can’t see how it isn’t overbearing. It takes up more than half of the whole site.

“The house that did have a reasonable garden, that’s virtually been taken away, and you’ve got a new house, and the purpose of that house is not to enhance the environment at all.”

Cllr Elena Round said the lack of space was concerning and homes did not need to be built on every available patch of land.

“If you have a family with children where are they meant to play outside?” she said.

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Councillors were supposed to decide on the application in August but delayed voting to give them the chance to visit the Dines Green site first.

After debating the application for nearly an hour in August, the committee said they could not find a reason to reject it and it was then decided that a visit to Drake Avenue was required before a vote.

The council’s planning officers already allowed a move by Mr Hassan to build the new three-bed home in the Drake Avenue garden in 2021 which means that even if councillors reject the application, the previous application would still be valid and a new home could still be built anyway.

A new application was then put forward last month with St John’s councillor Matt Lamb requesting a decision was made by councillors instead over his concerns about parking and the “significant opposition” from neighbours.