A POLICY aimed at cracking down on student homes in Worcester is today mired in confusion - after council staff appeared to try and water it down.

Your Worcester News can reveal how a bid to turn a property in Southfield Street, the Arboretum, into a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) was postponed after bewilderment around how to apply a new ruling.

In a bid to stop the seeming avalanche of student homes in parts of the city already under siege, the council now has a '10 per cent rule' in force.

It means a student house will be refused if all homes within 100 metres of the property already have that status.

The policy, known as Article 4, also makes it clear no new HMOs will be allowed if it creates more than two adjacent student properties.

A report before a planning committee recommended 12 Southfield Street should be allowed to become an HMO, taking the area's student housing concentration to 9.9 per cent.

Not only does it come right up to the threshold, but the homes either side of number 12 are already student properties.

Councillor Joy Squires, Worcester's Labour parliamentary candidate, turned up at the meeting to criticise the confusion.

"If this is accepted it will leave three HMOs in a row," she said.

"I fully accept the '10 per cent test' hasn't been passed, but it's pretty close at 9.9 per cent.

"But I thought the three-in-a-row test carried as much weight as anything else, this report seems to imply that it doesn't, for whatever reason.

"I also thought it had to be a fast and hard rule that HMOs needed to provide parking?

"The interpretation being taken by officers doesn't conform fully with everything we've discussed about Article 4."

Councillor Geoff Williams, chairman of the planning committee, said it was clear she had "policy concerns".

Following her criticism Alan Coleman, a senior planning officer, said he would withdraw the application to re-look at it.

"I think the councillor raises good concerns," he said.

An HMO is a property containing three or more people from two different families.

Many tend to be used by students, but it also includes so-called young professionals.

The city council decided to launch its new policy after years of concern about too much "studentification" around Worcester, resulting in areas like St John's being swamped with them.