A DEVELOPER behind a “highly controversial” plan for 57 new homes beside a village rugby club will appeal after it was rejected by Forest councillors.

The outline scheme for grassland at Mannings Farm off Drybrook High Street received 175 objections from villagers and bodies like the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and was thrown out despite planning officers recommending approval.

Developer Drybrook Ltd, which gives its address as Hill Cot Road, Bolton, has now appealed to the planning inspector on the grounds that the council failed to issue an official decision notice inside the statutory deadline.

It claims the grounds given by councillors for rejecting the scheme by nine votes to four at their February 13 Forest Council planning meeting were unjustified, and its officers had been unable to come up with any “technical reasoning” to back the refusal before the deadline expired at the end of February.

Villagers protested with placards outside the council’s Coleford offices before the February meeting, before around 50 of them packed the public gallery in the council chamber.

The scheme involves land right next to Rugby World magazine team of the year Drybrook RFC, who are celebrating their 125th anniversary.

Drybrook RFC chairman Chris Rawlings has told planners the plan encroaches on the club’s land and they will take out an immediate injunction, backed by the English RFU, to stop development if it is approved.

“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,” he told february’s meeting.

Drybrook parish councillor Roy Bardo added: “The whole village is against it… it’s a huge and unjustified development.”