VILLAGERS fear a planned housing development on the former Harvington Garage site could increase traffic dangers on a busy main road.

Residents and parish councillors claim vehicles speeding along the village's main street already endanger lives and that an application to build homes on the redundant garage site could make the problem worse.

The issue has been raised at Harvington Parish Council, with chairman Dennis McKenzie explaining that parked vehicles belonging to occupants of the planned homes and their visitors could make existing poor visibility along the road even worse.

That has led the parish council to call for a limit on the number of homes permitted and that adequate off-road parking is provided.

The application has been submitted to Wychavon District Council by Tuckey Cooke Elwell and council planning officers are set to approve the development.

The scheme has been reduced in scale from an original proposal for two town houses and six apartments to two town houses and four apartments.

Mr McKenzie said pedestrians were taking their lives in their hands trying to cross the highway, due to a "kink" in the road.

"If you look along the road, it seems clear then - suddenly - the traffic is upon you," he added, "If anything is parked there, then you look and you can't see. Your vision is blocked completely.

"You can't see them and they can't see you." Mr McKenzie said motorists did not keep to the 40mph speed limit but were often travelling at up to 70mph.

He added: "If any of the people buying the properties are two-car families or have visitors of service vehicles, they can only park on the pavement or the road."

He said the parish council had turned down an offer of £12,000 from the developers to upgrade the village's playing fields.

Villager Alan Davies, who had been lucky to emerge unhurt from one accident on the road but had had his car written off, said: "The 40mph speed limit doesn't work at all; the only way you're going to stop it now is cameras, I think."

He added: "Sooner or later, someone is going to be killed there."

No-one from Tuckey Cooke Elwell's agents, the architects' firm Marson Rathbone Taylor, was available to comment on the application.