A “HIGHLY controversial” plan for up to 57 homes beside a village rugby club has been rejected by Forest council planners.

The outline scheme for grassland at Manning’s Farm off Drybrook High Street attracted some 100 objections, including from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, despite council officers recommending approval.

More than 50 villagers protested outside the council’s Coleford offices with placards before packing the public gallery at the Forest planning committee meeting yesterday (Tuesday, February 13), applauding when it was voted down by nine votes to four.

Drybrook RFC chairman Chris Rawlings told councillors the application encroached on the club’s land and they would take out an immediate injunction, backed by the English RFU, to stop development if it was 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 said.

Drybrook parish councillor Roy Bardo said: “We’ve had no consultation over this at all. The whole village is against it.”

Citing flooding, traffic and access fears, he called it a “huge and unjustified development.”

Drybrook Ltd, which gives its address as Hill Cot Road, Bolton, wanted outline permission to develop a 2.07-hectare field beside the rugby club.

Planning officer Emma Hughes told the meeting the site had been earmarked for development as part of the Forest’s housing allocations plan, which is awaiting adoption by the inspector, but which the council considered “sound”.

She recommended that delegated consent be given to grant planning permission on condition of a legal agreement securing S106 funding of £296,000 for local schools and £11,000 for libraries and 40 per cent affordable housing.

But opposing the scheme, ward member Cllr Jackie Fraser (Lab, Mitcheldean and Drybrook) said it was a “valued landscape over-

looked by hills”, while Cllr Roger Yeates (Con, Bromsberrow and Dymock) said last week’s site visit had shown that the proposed one-lane access route was not wide enough for a bin lorry.

Cllr Graham Morgan (Lab, Cinderford West) called the access “an abomination” and added: “This development is closing two distinct settlements, Drybrook and Harrow Hill. It’ll be urban sprawl.”

Residents who objected claimed there was already traffic chaos during rugby games with cars parking on High Street.

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.”

Drybrook Parish Council claimed it would put a “strain on sewerage and water services on a field already prone to flood issues.”

Chick Grail, who organised the protest outside the council offices, also told planners: “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.”

After the plan was turned down on grounds of flood risk, road safety and ecology, he said: “It’s only the beginning of the fight, because they are bound to appeal.”