PLANS to build 68 new homes in Welland should be rejected, says the local parish council.

At a meeting in Tuesday, members of Little Malvern and Welland Parish Council agreed to recommend rejection of two plans, one at the Pheasant Inn, at the heart of the village, the other at Lawn Farm, Drake Street.

Friary Group has applied to build 18 houses in the grounds of the Pheasant - which has been closed for several years - and two flats in the pub, but the applicant also plans to reopen the pub.

And Kler Developments wants to build 50 homes at Lawn Farm.

These applications come on top of plans for another 50 houses at Lawn Farm and 30 at the Old Post Office, also in Drake Street, which have both been approved. And a plan for another 22 homes on a site off Marlbank Road is now going through the appeals process.

Tuesday's meeting follows a public meeting at the village hall the previous Thursday, at which residents voiced their disapproval.

Don Atkinson of the parish council said: "With the developments at the Pheasant, Lawn Farm and the Old Post Office that's adding an awful lot of traffic to the road. Drainage is also a major issue. With all this extra housing, where's the water going to go?"

Developers are going to do what they do - it's in their nature - but they don;t think about what they are doing to the countryside in the long term."

Mick Davies, secretary of the Welland Residents Action Group, said: "With the Lawn Farm application, people are outraged by but not surprised. Everyone knew approval of the first 50 houses would be followed by a second phase.

"With the Pheasant, it was always clear that part of the land around the pub will be developed, but 18 houses h does not leave very much for the pub. There's a sizeable body of opinion that the Pheasant needs to be retained as a kind of flexible community asset in the future, whether as pub, restaurant, cafe, meeting place or internet cafe.

"A s things currently stand, there are huge financial incentives to develop green field sites on the edge of villages. The only way we can resist these forces is with the rational support of MHDC planning officers and particularly MHDC councillors."