COUNCILLORS will be meeting for a second time to decide on whether a controversial plan to build 62 new homes in a village should be allowed to go ahead.

Piper Homes wants to build the new homes in Crowle near Worcester but is still waiting for a ruling from Wychavon District Council after a decision was delayed last month over fears the village could become overrun with sewage.

The planning committee agreed to push back a decision to give the council more time to make sure Crowle’s sewage system was fit for purpose before any new housing was built.

Ahead of the meeting last month, the council’s planning officers had advised the plan was given the green light along with a condition that Severn Trent Water was expected to make sure a proper sewage system was built before half of the homes were filled.

But the lack of guarantee made some councillors uneasy with much of the committee wanting reassurance that a system would be built before any of the homes were occupied and agreed to delay a decision until the council could negotiate with Severn Trent.

During the meeting, Cllr Margaret Rowley said 62 homes was “too many” but her call to turn the plan down was lost when it was put to a vote. The committee then voted to defer a decision by 13 votes with one abstention.

A total of 40 objections were made against the plan by villagers in Crowle.

Crowle parish councillor Ian Boden said the application, coupled with other plans nearby, would increase the size of the village by at least a quarter.

“That rate and pace of growth cannot be accommodated without major infrastructure improvements and really cannot be considered to be sustainable development in a small rural village,” he said at the meeting in Pershore on July 20.

Spitfire Homes had its plan to build 30 homes on land less than half a mile away from Froxmere Road off the village’s Church Road backed by the committee at the same meeting.