Plans to build a huge new housing estate in Great Witley have been rejected.

Bloor Homes had wanted to build 90 homes on land south of Stourport Road.

But members of Malvern Hills District Council’s Northern Area planning committee were unhappy about the size of the development and the lack of school places in the area.

Cllr Paul Cumming, speaking at a meeting on Wednesday (June 5) said a previous housing scheme for the same site was turned down on appeal because it was outside the village development boundary.

“That hasn’t changed,” he said. “We have proposed as a council that part of this current site should have houses built on it but that’s not been approved yet.

“What we’re being asked to agree to is concreting over a beautiful sloping field with great views of the Abberley hills just over the way and destroying an attractive environment.”

He said 90 homes was way over the number of homes required in Great Witley and would change the character of the village.

Cllr Barbara Jones-Williams said that on a visit to the site, she became concerned that building houses on the field would spoil the views that currently extend to Abberley Tower.

Cllr Tom Wells said the proposal doesn’t fit within the district council’s emerging neighbourhood plan, which informs planning policy, “at all”.

Cllr David Harrison said the development wouldn’t provide any money to transport primary school children to nearby schools, if there was no place for them at Great Witley school.

Frank Chapman, Great Witley Parish Council, said 90 houses would account for a 50 percent increase in the number of homes in the village and that the field was classed as open countryside in a draft neighbourhood plan.

Jonathan Bryan, Bloor Homes, had told councillors: “The site is in a sustainable location in the heart of Great Witley, a category one settlement considered by MHDC to be one of the most sustainable villages in the district.

“The location of the site provides a unique opportunity to provide a new village green and an enhanced green link between Bowen’s field, the primary school, the village hall and the surgery - all key community facilities.”

He said a new network of footpaths would have been created to link the development with existing village amenities.