PLANS for housing development on land off Eastward Road were found in a field by a man walking his dog.

Now the man who found the plan, Nigel Tyler, of Sycamore Close, wants to know if a field behind his home will be filled with houses.

Mr Tyler found the soggy, folded piece of paper when walking his dog Charlie in fields behind his back garden.

When he opened it he was amazed to see a plan with a large area marked as 'the site,' and another, larger site marked 'land for potential future development'.

"I was a bit worried," he said.

"I bought a property facing onto open fields and I wouldn't like to see houses there."

Mr Tyler said the area's infrastructure wasn't suitable to support a large housing development and would create problems with sewerage and drainage.

He said the fields had laid fallow for a number of years and the owls and other wildlife established there would lose their homes if building work went ahead.

Traffic was another concern. With plans for a development at North Site already under way, Mr Tyler felt more houses would congest the area's roads.

Barton Willmore, the firm of planning consultants whose name appears on the plan, said Taylor Woodrow Developments was promoting the land for future housing development through the local plan review process.

"The site is not currently allocated for development and there are no current planning applications in respect

of it," a spokesman said.

Taylor Woodrow Developments has objected to the first deposit draft of the plan. It feels the site off Eastward Road is suitable and sustainable for development.

At an inquiry next summer, a Government inspector will consider all of the sites being promoted and say which he thinks should be allocated for housing in the plan.

Coun John Raine, planning spokes-man for Malvern Hills District Council, said: "The site is not in the second deposit draft of the local plan and therefore it is not council policy at this moment in time.

"But the inquiry is a binding process and what the inspector says, we will have to go with."

In the second draft of the local plan, due to go on public deposit next Friday, the land off Eastward Road is defined as a strategic gap between Malvern and Leigh Sinton

Simon Jones, of the council's planning department, said residents worried about the site being developed should write in support of the strategic gap and settlement boundary policies.