PLANS for thousands of new homes will more than double the size of the county’s largest village, a councillor has warned.

Councillor David Harrison says Kempsey near Worcester will be swelled by an allocation of 2,583 possible homes as set out in a new housing plan.

Coun Harrison, Kempsey parish councillor and Malvern Hills district councillor, was referring to numbers in the South Worcestershire Development Plan preferred options strategy – which is town planners best guess for the number of houses needed between 2006 and 2030.

As reported in your Worcester News the overall plan for 20,000 homes has been put together by Worcester City Council, Malvern Hills District Council and Wychavon District Council.

At the north of Kempsey parish, outside the village proper, planners say there is enough room for 2,450 new homes listed under the Brockhill and Norton site.

But Coun Harrison says the site’s name is misleading and will in fact mean a vast expansion of Kempsey.

“There are 1,300 households in Kempsey, and this plan is to increase that almost twofold,” he said.

“It’s nowhere near Brockhill and it's right across the ‘significant gap’ which was put in place by a planning inspector, between Worcester and Kempsey.

“These plans do nothing for Kempsey,” he said.

Under a previous – and now defunct – plan which answered the old Labour Government’s old housing targets, the area had been set to deliver about 3,000 homes.

Meanwhile the chairman of Lower Broadheath Parish Council Barbara Beard welcomed an allocation for 64 new homes in the village, which is to the west of Worcester.

And she believes many in the area will be delighted their previous allocation of homes under the old plan for up to 4,000 homes have been reduced to 975 homes, centred on land around the Oldbury Farm area at what planners have dubbed the Temple Laughern site.

She said the plan “was something we can live with” but had concerns.

“My main concerns however are still a lack of employment in the area plan and also infrastructure.

“Even 1,000 new homes will put enough cars on the roads to cause problems.”

The parish council will give a formal response during the public consultation in September. The strategy can be viewed at swdevelopmentplan.org.