A factory that could be converted to housing is to be visited by planners before they make a decision.

Nicholson's Organs wants to move from the building at the bottom of Quest Hills Road, Malvern Link, the district council's southern area planning sub-committee heard on Monday.

The firm, which has won the contract to repair Malvern Priory's ailing organ, has applied to convert its existing workshop into four dwellings and build a new three-storey house in the yard.

At the meeting, Coun David Williams said the sub-committee should visit the site before making a decision.

"Car parking is an absolute nightmare on Quest Hills Road and Lower Quest Hills Road," he said.

The council has received 19 letters from local residents objecting to the plans. Many of them cite on-street parking in the area as a major problem.

Malvern Town Council said it did not object to the project as a whole but that the house in the yard would be "out of keeping".

Malvern Civic Society also expressed reservations about the new house, while welcoming the plan in general.

Andrew Moyes, of Nicholson's, said the firm was negotiating to move on to the Merebrook industrial estate near Hanley Swan.

The company has occupied the Quset Hills Road site since the 1950s and has been looking to move for several years.

In 1999, it lodged a planning application to move into a former dairy off Leigh Sinton Road but this was refused by planners.

The firm supplies and restores organs for churches and cathedrals in this country and abroad.

Recent contracts have included work on the organs at Christchurch Priory, Hampshire, and Gloucester Cathedral. The firm is also restoring the organ at the Church of St Martin's-in-the-Bullring in Birmingham city centre, which is part of a £800 million urban renovation project.