THE council’s planning committee risked incurring the wrath of the Planning Inspectorate after rejecting a proposal that was recommended for approval.

A landownerhas put in several previous applications to build three houses at Church Walk South that have all been rejected, including one earlier this year.

Now the application has been changed to a degree that the Planning Inspectorate would find acceptable but the committee still rejected it at a meeting on Tuesday night.

It means the council could be forced to pay the costs if any appeal goes through but members argued as elected officials it was important that they acted in the best interest of the town.

Coun Peter Watts (Rodbourne Cheney) said: “We feel that this is overdevelopment of the area and the road layout within the application is not adequate.

“There have been many applications for this site and it seems at the moment an applicant can keep going back to the Planning Inspectorate until they eventually get permission.

“We are elected representatives and local democracy is saying this is not right.”

There is no word from the developers on whether they are going to appeal the decision made by the committee.