A PLAN to build homes on a doctor’s surgery car park has fallen at the first hurdle after it was rejected by councillors.

Severn Valley Medical Centre off Ankerage Green in Warndon has put forward plans to build six new homes ‘in principle’ on part of its overspill car park but the plan was refused by Worcester City Council’s planning committee last Thursday (October 22).

Councillors feared the homes would make traffic and parking problems even worse than they already are despite the county’s highways department raising no objections.

Cllr Roger Berry said he was unhappy the council’s highways department had said there were no problems in the area.

“What world do they live in?” he said. “There has always been a problem there.”

Highways officers said the car park was private land and traffic surveys had suggested the overflow car park was being used for “convenience” and other parking spaces were available nearby.

Warndon councillor and resident Ceri Stalker said building homes would make traffic and parking problems even worse.

“I think putting some houses there would be the start of a slippery slope,” she said. “Putting houses in tiny little spaces where they were not meant to go, I am totally against.”

Governors at Lyppard Grange Primary School said they were concerned the homes would bring even more parking trouble to already-congested streets and trustees at Lyppard Grange Community Centre objected to the plan saying Ankerage Green was “impassable” during parts of the day because of congestion.

The doctor's surgery had said the overspill car park is "underused" and often wrongly seen as a car park for shops when it is in fact private and only for the use of patients.

Warndon councillor Andy Roberts questioned whether the car park was actually brownfield land as the proper tests had not been carried out. He said the council was ‘putting the horse before the cart’ and needed to find out whether it was before agreeing to any plans.

The city council’s landscape officer had said the land was part of the green network which would mean it should not be developed on.

The officer's comments were available on the council’s website but were not included in the report discussed by the council’s planning committee.

City council planning officers said the comments had not been included in the committee report as those details would be discussed at a later stage and giving ‘permission in principle’ did not necessarily mean the homes would be built on the land if future plans did not address the issues raised so far.

The application was refused by ten votes to one.