A TOTAL of 27 homes are set to be built in a Somerset village after councillors made a U-turn and approved a development they had rejected just last month.

North Somerset Council’s planning committee voted to refuse planning permission for Woodstock Homes to build on fields next to Churchill on July 17.

As the decision went against the recommendation of the council’s planning officers, council rules required it come back before the committee to be ratified.

But, in a surprise move, instead of ratifying their previous decision, members of the planning committee instead voted 7-3 to grant planning permission for the homes to go ahead.

Vicechair of Churchill Parish Council, David Johnson, who had addressed the committee to urge them to stand by their decision, said that the U-turn was “not at all” expected. He said: “I would have said between last meeting and this meeting there has been an apparent change of the ground rules.”

The homes, eight of which would be affordable, would be built on a field on the east side of Hillier’s Lane which would “infill” between the village and a group of homes on Dinghurst Road, with a smaller field next to the homes to become an orchard.

Locals warned the village had seen shops and services close and children at the development would have to walk along a stretch of busy road without a pavement to walk to school.

Planning committee member Robert Payne (Weston-super-Mare Central, Liberal Democrat) said: “My view about Churchill is that its totally the wrong place for development. I think its an unsustainable location. But I do think it’s not a good use of the council’s limited resources to turn down applications that are likely to win on appeal.”

Clare Hunt (Nailsea Youngwood, Labour) added: “The trouble is, this is going to be repeated year and year again because there’s such a need for houses in this country and the one person we’ve not heard from today is perhaps someone looking for a home and there’s so many of them.

“I think the development looks rather nice and I hope one day someone will have a nice home because that’s what people deserve in this country.”

Although it was not directly addressed in the debate, one thing that did happen between the two meetings was the new Labour government’s proposed planning reforms which is set to increase North Somerset’s 15 year house building target by almost 9,000.