A PLAN to build new homes on green space designed to ‘protect’ homes from a busy motorway has been turned down.

The application for ‘principle’ permission to build up to five homes on green space off Trotshill Lane East in Warndon Villages has fallen at the first hurdle having been rejected by planners at Worcester City Council.

The homes would have been built next to Trotshill Farm and the Georgian-era farmhouse to the east of the 2014-approved Coach House.

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Planners said the application by John Glackin clashed with all the council’s policies on conservation and ‘significant gaps’ – which are supposed to protect land between to keep towns, cities and villages separate and ‘distinct’ from each other - and the important green fields should remain untouched.

The council added that despite the plan being “relatively small-scale” it was still “unacceptable” and would undermine all its rules on protecting green space.

The area, which is home to a number of listed buildings, is already heavily protected because it lies within a conservation area and is also classed as ‘sensitive’ – with archaeologists believing it to have been populated around the time of the Domesday Book in 1086.

The council’s archaeologist did not object to the plan but said the lack of information in the application meant they were unable to decide whether there was anything of ‘high significance’ still in the ground.

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The space was also earmarked in 2016 in the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP) as land that should be protected and has stayed in the current version which is currently undergoing a review.

Worcester Civic Society said building homes on the green space would “erode the character” of the valuable land for Warndon Villages.

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Cllr Lucy Hodgson, who represents Warndon Parish South, had called for the application to be decided by the council’s planning committee if officers were considering giving the green light to the work due to the level of concern from locals.

Cllr Hodgson said the green space was popular with dog walkers and the important gap between homes and the M5 should stay.

Warndon Parish Council also objected to the homes criticising the plan for building on the fields which ‘protected’ Warndon Villages from the noisy and polluted M5.