HUGE public opposition has forced a businessman to abandon his plans to open a sex shop in a Worcester.

Worcester City Council received more than 400 letters of objection to the proposed store on Barbourne Road, which would have opened up just 100 yards from a school.

The application to licence the premises, which until September had been a Victoria Wine off-licence, was due to be heard by the council's licensing committee later this month.

But Kevin Mitchell of Sheffield-based firm Provincial Enterprises Ltd withdrew his application yesterday.

Licensing officer, Julian Pugh, said the volume of objections to the shop, which would have been the second in the city, was unprecedented.

Steve Mills, headteacher of St George's CE Primary School, on St George's Lane North, which would have been the closest school to the shop, said he was pleased the application had been withdrawn.

He wrote to the parents of the school's 210 pupils to inform them about the shop and with the help of a parent, Nigel Haywood, managed to harness support for the campaign against it.

"We didn't feel it was an appropriate location for a sex shop - there are five schools within the vicinity and we would have been the closest," Mr Mills said.

"I have children as young as four at the school who would have had to walk past it."

"We were also concerned about the type of customer the shop might have attracted," he added.

The vicar of St George's CE Church, the Reverend Mark Badger, who also wrote to his parishioners to inform them about the application, said this was a "positive outcome".

"My only objection was the location that had been chosen, which I thought was inappropriate."

"I had an awful lot of people coming to me and expressing concern about the shop and they have risen up to oppose it," he added.