THE owner of the International Gospel Centre in Malvern Link has complained that a proposed workshop and office next door will ruin its peace and tranquillity.

Malvern Hills District Council planners this week granted permission for Worcester-based Varicon 3D Drives Ltd to build a two-storey industrial building on Plot 3 of the Haysfield site.

The site was once the gardens of the Convent of the Holy Name in Ranelagh Road.

In 1994, Gordon Leveratt bought the dilapidated property and spent more than £600,000 renovating it as a Day of Salvation Christian retreat and conference centre.

For five years prior to that, the listed building had been empty and its grounds on Haysfield were sold to developers Hermes Homes Ltd and then Malvern Hills District Council. In 1995, one of the Haysfield plots was used to build Kwik-Save.

Additions have since included the 12-bed foyer hostel for the Malvern Hills Homeless Young Adults Trust and 21 flats for psychiatric patients in the former St Michael's Nursing Home and convent laundry.

The new Varicon workshop will be the first industrial development in Haysfield, and Mr Leveratt had complained that its "ugly" presence will "ruin the outlook" of the centre.

He is also concerned about noise and effects on the property's market value.

He said that if the new workshop does become obtrusive he will seek compensation from MHDC and would consider taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.