A "HIGHLY controversial" outline plan for up to 57 homes beside a village rugby club has been backed for approval by planning officers.

The scheme for grassland at Manning’s Farm off Drybrook High Street has attracted 96 objections, including from the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

If approved next Tuesday (February 13) by Forest planning councillors, officers will then seek £296,000 of S106 payments for local schools and £11,000 for libraries to mitigate extra pressures on the community.

Drybrook Ltd, which gives its address as Hill Cot Road, Bolton, is seeking outline permission to develop a 2.07-hectare field beside Drybrook Rugby Club.

Residents claim there is already traffic chaos during home games with cars parking on High Street, while the club itself claims the development would impinge on their land.

Drybrook RFC chairman Christofer Rawlings has told planners: "We are in no doubt that after studying the documentation, this proposal quite clearly overlaps and is within our property boundary and are absolutely appalled that such a proposal can get to this stage of planning when it is quite clear that it violates our property."

Resident Mr R Elton added: "Visit the entrance to the proposed site when Drybrook RFC have a home fixture... the traffic chaos continues down the High Street and further up the road towards the Stenders."

David Howard said: "Drybrook doesn’t need 57 more houses. My own children attend Drybrook Primary School which is already at maximum capacity and the traffic and parking in the village are already terrible."

An objection letter from Mr and Mrs Chick Grail, who have lived beside the site for 45 years, states: "It is situated over a pumped high pressure water main serving the Forest of Dean and a sludge line that discharges into Hawkwell Pit and from a safety aspect we would consider extremely dangerous in such a high density development if there were to be a major blow out."

Drybrook Parish council also opposes the "highly controversial application", which it claims will put a "strain on sewerage and water services on a field already prone to flood issues" and pressure "services such as the school which is at capacity".

Other factors raised by objectors include an impact on wildlife, fears of contamination from old mine workings nearby and claims that a Roman road may have gone across the field.

A report by planning officer Emma Hughes says the site has been earmarked for development as part of the Forest’s housing applications plan, which is awaiting adoption by the inspector but which the council considered "sound".

She has recommended that delegated consent be given to grant planning permission on condition of a legal agreement securing S106 funding and 40 per cent affordable housing.