DISGUSTING and thoughtless - that is how one bride-to-be has branded city councillors after they voted once and for all to scrap the reception venue she had booked for her wedding day.

The Evening News reported in December how Worcester City Council planning committee turned down an application by the Diglis House Hotel to retain its garden marquee for a 12-week period every summer until 2009 - leaving 10 couples' dream days in disarray.

The hotel re-applied for permission to retain the luxury tent for just 12 weeks this summer to honour the weddings already booked - but despite being recommended for approval, councillors voted yesterday to refuse the plans again.

Coun Francis Lankester said the committee could not respond to a "sympathy vote".

"No matter how much sympathy we have with the people who have booked that is not our responsibility," he said. "Sympathy is not a planning argument."

Six voted it should get the go-ahead, six did not - meaning deputy chairman Coun Barry Mackenzie-Williams, who was chairing the meeting, had to use his casting vote.

Yet despite voting in favour of the recommendation and saying the bookings were "not for a beer festival but for the most important day in a young adult's life", he changed his mind.

Detrimental

It was decided the 120-capacity marquee, which has been hosting weddings for the past 11 years, had a detrimental effect on the setting of the Grade II listed hotel, failed to enhance the riverside conservation area, and created excess noise and disturbance to nearby residents.

Rachel Ball, aged 31, who was due to celebrate her wedding to 36-year-old Colin Bate at the Diglis hotel on Saturday, June 18 said she was inconsolable when she found out.

"I have got a fall back option but it is nothing like as desirable," she said. "I'm in shock. Neither I nor any of my family can believe what's happened.

"I think the planning committee is disgusting and thoughtless."

Stacey Perks, who had booked the Diglis marquee for the reception of her wedding to Simon Moore on Saturday, July 23, has had to postpone the big day.

"I'm upset," she said. "I wanted an outside venue and there just isn't anywhere else."

Colin Tutin, the hotel manager, simply said he was "shocked" by the decision.

"Even if we wanted to appeal we wouldn't get the results until September so there's no point," he said.

But he added the hotel was looking at a building a permanent "orangery" style building on the grounds for the future.