THE looming threat a massive new housing plan for south Worcestershire could be scrapped has prompted councillors to dust off proposals for ‘Plan B’.

Legal advisors have been called in at Worcester City Council, while Wychavon District Council has also been looking at what it would need to do to deliver thousands of new homes, to meet burgeoning need.

It comes as the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP) blueprint for the area’s growth over the next 18 years received a blow just a few weeks before a key meeting on its future, when members of one of the three partner councils – Malvern Hills District Council – proposed huge changes.

A councillors’ task group set up by Malvern Hills to look at the SWDP, published a report suggesting hundreds of homes be moved out of the district and into the Redhill area of Worcester and the Littleworth and Norton area of Wychavon.

Their findings will now be discussed at an extraordinary Malvern council meeting on Tuesday, November 13, and if they receive majority backing from councillors will set up Malvern for a showdown with Worcester and Wychavon at key meetings held on December 10.

If Malvern councillors vote to change the SWDP at their December meeting, Worcester and Wychavon say they will go their separate ways as they are not prepared to accept the plan’s delay, as previously reported.

The city council and Wychavon are now looking at producing separate Local Plans.

And councillor Marc Bayliss, elected head of planning at Worcester, made it clear that Malvern would be expected to be sympathetic to the city’s need to expand, if they all had to go it alone.

“Should the SWDP fall, and separate Local Plans be developed, then we would be objecting to any Malvern Local Plan that does not help meet Worcester’s [housing] demand,” he said.

His fear is that divided, the councils will not be able to pool civil infrastructure levy payments which are needed to help pay for projects like the dualling of the southern link road (A4440) – a key economic artery for all three districts.

He also says key policies – like those governing the number of affordable home which get built – could also fall out of sync.

His opposite number at Wychavon, councillor Judy Pearce, said the council was “fairly well prepared” for a Plan B. “This is not a ‘do-nothing’ situation,” she said.

“We need a plan as fast as possible – if we’re messed around every time, then we cannot afford to wait.”