A move to open a new Costa Coffee drive-thru in a village has been turned down by councillors.

The popular coffee chain has seen its move to open a new next to the Crown Inn pub off Malvern Road in Powick near Worcester rejected by Malvern Hills District Council’s planning committee.

The council’s planning department had recommended the new drive-thru was given the green light, but many members of the planning committee spoke out strongly against the move and eventually turned it down.

Cllr David Harrison did not mince his words over the potential new drive-thru calling it “beyond a joke.”

“I hate this,” he said at the meeting in Malvern on Wednesday (September 6). “It’s probably a good thing in totally the wrong place.”

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Cllr Tom Wells, who represents Powick, said: “Powick is a village, it’s not a suburb of Worcester. It’s where lots of people live and feel passionate about the community and the landscape.

“They feel that landscape is under threat and their very status as a village is under threat.”

Worcester News: SITE: The land off Hospital Lane in Powick where the new Costa Coffee drive-thru could be built

Cllr Margaret Huckfield, chair of Powick Parish Council’s planning committee, said the proposed drive-thru would be disruptive for the 19 family homes recently built next to the land – saying it would be like “having a retail park dropped on their front lawns.”

She said more congestion was inevitable and the plan “delivered no tangible benefits to the community.”

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One objector, Eileen Cowles, from Powick, told councillors that nearby residents would suffer the impact of the development and gain little benefit from the service.

The move by Costa Coffee was met with criticism from many villagers in Powick ahead of the meeting with some calling it “utter madness.”

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More than 100 objections were registered with the council’s planners ahead of the meeting – with many criticising the extra traffic the drive-thru would generate.

In a long objection before the meeting, Powick Parish Council said the drive-thru’s design was “totally inappropriate” for the village and would add to problems on the busy A449, which has seen several accidents in recent years including a fatal crash in February, and cause tailbacks on nearby Hospital Lane.