A WORCESTERSHIRE MP has spoken of his relief over the county's 28,370-home blueprint getting the nod - insisting it is "better than no plan at all".

Nigel Huddleston told your Worcester News he was glad the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP) has secured an inspector's approval after years of work.

As we first revealed last week, the dossier has now been signed off by an independent inspector Roger Clews.

It will now go 'live' after votes by district councils in Worcester, Wychavon and Malvern towards the end of this month, all but ending the risk of developers building on sites not earmarked for new builds.

Mr Huddleston represents Mid-Worcestershire, which is taking a big chunk of the properties at well over 10,000.

He said: "Planning is one of the top issues in my mailbag despite the fact I don't have any control over it whatsoever.

"I get people saying everything from 'my neighbour wants to build a conservatory' to everything else, people send me all sorts of enquiries on it.

"I'm very pleased it's been approved and relieved that we now have a plan.

"It's not ideal, I know a lot of people don't like the numbers or the locations, but we've it's much better to have one than not.

"I remember when I was a councillor in Hertfordshire we had one of the oldest development plans in the entire country, these things are very important.

"I know the principle of this one is about trying to build on brownfield sites first and definitely paying attention to having the right infrastructure in place to support it, that's vital."

The plan will last up to 2030 and also includes land for 25,000 jobs spread across 309 hectares of land during the same period.

Worcester is taking more than 9,400 properties including two major extensions, one which will be south of the city on fields off Crookbarrow Way in a £400 million 2,600-home 'super village' including a school, doctor's surgery and parks.

Elsewhere, Malvern is taking 5,900 homes, although all of the figures for each area take account of more than 8,000 properties already built since 2006 and another 8,000 with current planning permission.

Old pubs, scrub land, swimming pools, fields, former industrial units and all sorts of other vacant plots of land are due to be developed.

The SWDP was originally drawn up with 23,200 homes before Mr Clews ordered that tally to increase to today's figure.