THE building which housed the county’s school library service will be demolished to make way for nine new homes.

The homes would be built at the northern part of the site closest to Sherwood Lane in Worcester with the rest of the site left as green space.

The plan was deferred by Worcester City Council’s planning committee in April which meant developer Signature New Homes had to go back to the drawing board.

The council signed off on plans at the end of last year.

The site would also make use of the existing entrance from Sherwood Lane onto the former Worcestershire County Council library service building as a way of accessing the new homes.

The larger homes would come with a garage in addition to off-road car parking spaces. Four of the three-bedroom semi-detached homes would also be provided with off-road car parking spaces.

The plan raised a number of objections from neighbours – largely over the height of the new homes as well as loss of privacy and an increase in traffic and car-parking.

Councillors dismissed the plan despite the own council’s planning officers recommended the homes were approved.

Planners said the two-storey homes would be set back behind the street-facing bungalow which would not be harmful or out of character with the rest of the area.

The council also said concerns by neighbours over the density of the homes within the site had been taken into account but the site had six fewer homes than it had been allocated in the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP).

Neighbours had also raised concerns about badgers in the area and an assessment found a badger sett to the south-east corner of the site - to be used as green amenity space.

Subsequent assessments found the badger sett to be a ‘subsidiary’ or smaller sett.