PLANS for a swimming pool in Bromyard will not progress until a Government inquiry is held next year.

The release of land at Hardwicke Close relies on permission for a development of 36 houses on the same site being granted by Herefordshire Council.

But the development, which is outside Bromyard's urban area, was not included in a revised draft of Herefordshire Council's Unitary Development Plan (UDP), approved by full council on Friday. The plan lays out the council's vision for the development of the area until 2011.

Bromyard and District Community Swimming Pool Trust has submitted a formal objection to the proposal's exclusion from the initial draft of the plan. However, that objection will not be considered until a public inquiry into the UDP, which is not likely to go ahead until next year.

Inclusion in the UDP makes it much easier to gain planning permission for developments.

Around £45,000 of private funding has been raised for the pool so far, but more fundraising cannot go ahead until this planning permission is granted.

Working party chairman Francis Jarman said: "We are being held back because of all this officialdom.

"People in Bromyard were very enthusiastic at the beginning of the fundraising but we've had so many disappointments that I don't think we can expect to start raising more funds until we've got planning permission quite clearly."

Herefordshire Council announced that work on Leominster's new swimming pool for North Herefordshire would start next month.

The council confirmed in December last year that it would not build a separate pool in Bromyard, which it says would be served by the Leominster facilities.