WORCESTER'S Green Belt is going to accommodate a new bungalow - with angry city councillors speaking of their frustration.

A landowner has secured controversial planning permission to convert a horses stable block into a home on the corner of Hindlip Lane in Claines.

The move has infuriated the city's deputy mayor, who has called it "totally wrong".

Britain's protected Green Belt is not meant to be built on but back in 2000, the city council voted to allow the current stables to go ahead on the understanding none of it would become a residence at a later date.

But Geoffrey Knight, who lives in Fernhill Heath, recently applied to convert some of the land so he can live there, with a report saying he wants to "be on site to look after his horses" rather than travel there twice daily.

It was voted through during a city council planning committee meeting after officers recommended the bungalow get the go-ahead, with the precedent of some development on the land already established.

Stables have been on the site in some form or other since 1999, with the report saying a residence on there would have a "very minor impact on the openness of the Green Belt".

But the view exasperated councillors, who said they were backing it very reluctantly.

Deputy Mayor of Worcester Councillor Mike Whitehouse, who attended to object, said: "It's quite straightforward, this is totally wrong, it's a Green Belt area.

"It sends the wrong message out, that building on the Green Belt is ok.

"If feels like just because the wrong decision was made 15 years ago, you're being asked to make another wrong decision.

"If you agree to this you may as well get rid of this committee and let Alan (Coleman, a planning officer) and his department decide everything.

"We've got an obligation to protect the Green Belt against situations like this - as councillors we've got to stand up against it."

Councillor Paul Denham, who sits on the committee, said: "From time to time people find a way to get around the planning system, I've seen it before.

"Fifteen years ago he knew he could get planning permission because it was for agricultural use and here we are now, asked to approve this.

"I don't like it but I don't feel we've got any planning reasons to refuse it."

It was voted through, but Conservative Robert Rowden went against it while fellow Tory councillors Allah Ditta and Andy Stafford abstained.

Mr Knight, who attended the meeting, did write a letter to the committee saying "just being able to live there and look after the horses will seal the future" of that piece of land.

He also said Green Belt restrictions would stop him from doing anything else and told your Worcester News he only recently intended to have a residence there.

"Anyone who says this was always my intention (to have a bungalow there) is wrong," he said.