West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin has called on Malvern Hills district councillors to develop an urgent action plan after it lost a planning decision in Rushwick.

And the MP has written to Housing Secretary Michael Gove asking for clarification after a planning inspector allowed an application for 120 homes to go ahead in the village.

The inspector had said that the council had not shown that it had enough sites ready for development to meet housing demand for the next five years – as it is required to do so.

Across the three councils who are part of the South Worcestershire Development Plan, the five-year land supply is met but the planning inspector ruled that in the specific Malvern Hills area, there are not enough sites ready to proceed.

Harriett has asked the Government to clarify this ruling and also asked for Malvern Hills District Council leader Sarah Rouse to come up with an urgent plan to prevent widescale planning applications landing at the council’s door.

Harriett said:

“I have been briefed about the planning ruling and have written to the Government to understand what impact this may have on the democratically-developed South Worcestershire Development Plan.

“This is a worrying decision. I have always supported an annual amount of homes built on the right local sites and this ruling could undermine all of this.

“I have always felt that the land supply issue could be easily met by allowing the smaller villages to build very small plots and keep communities growing. Malvern Hills has consistently rejected this approach and now the five-year supply issue is looming large.

“I’ve called on Sarah Rouse and her ruling group of councillors to look into this matter urgently and come up with an urgent plan to head off this potential crisis. Hopefully a swift response will prevent a deluge of speculative planning applications.”