PLANS for a major urban expansion on the northern edge of Malvern will be coming back before district councillors next week.

The application for Newland, by Gleeson Developments Ltd and Welbeck Strategic Land LLP, includes 800 homes, land for employment development, a care home, community hall, shops and other facilities, as well as playing fields and green space.

The site, bounded by Lower Howsell Road, the railway line and Worcester Road, is allocated for housing in the South Worcestershire Development Plan.

The application, which was originally submitted in 2015, came up before Malvern Hills District Council’s southern area planning committee in November.

But instead of making a decision, the committee decided to defer the application to allow planning officers to have further talks with the applicants on issues such as the lack of a primary school in the plan, problems with the single access off the Newland roundabout and a lack of affordable housing.

One opponent of the plan says that the Newland roundabout is completely wrong as an access.

Roy Winwood said: “Any attempt to alter the Townsend Way Island at Newland in any configuration onto the proposed Newland development site will not work.

“What will work is to build a purpose-made island on the first Madresfield turn after leaving Malvern which has ample land available and could easily accommodate an entrance and exit point directly onto the proposed development site with no disruption to traffic flow on the A449 primary route into Malvern from Worcester.”

He also said: “Part of the site lies on wetland which is prone to flooding at the north east corner, comparable to a large lake when heavy prolonged rainfall is present which floods Stocks Lane and closes it to traffic .To exacerbate the present very serious flooding situation would be madness.”

At the meeting on Wednesday, January 16, members are being advised to approve the application.

A report says that the Worcestershire County Council highways department says that “the proposal represents the optimum scheme given the constraints of land and the needs of differing road users”. It also says that the education authority says there is a “sufficiency of places” in existing schools to provide for families on the development, and a new primary school “cannot be said to be necessary”.