Councillors have ruled that a planned housing development on the edge of a village must remain a self-build scheme.

Last September Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council granted outline planning permission for nine serviced plots for self-build homes in a field of Fairgreen Road in Baldwins Gate.

Applicant Hencie Homes subsequently asked the council to lift a condition that requires the homes to be self-build or custom-build properties.

Thirty residents and Whitmore Parish Council objected to the new application, saying it would 'fundamentally' change the development and turn it into another 'mass market' housing scheme.

Planning committee members have now refused the application, saying they attached 'significant weight' to the self-build element of the development. This means the original outline planning permission for nine self-build homes remains in place.

Hollie Davies, who runs Hencie Homes with her husband, told the committee that they had attempted to bring the site forward as a self-build scheme, but claimed the current planning permission prevents the land being prepared in a co-ordinated way.

She said that removing the condition would allow more flexibility, but would still allow self-build schemes to come forward if there is interest.

Ms Davies said: "This application does not change the development. It remains a scheme of up to nine dwellings on the same site, with the same impacts that have already been assessed and accepted.

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"We have made genuine attempts to deliver this site as self-build. We've explored and marketed the site as a whole for self-build and custom build delivery over a period of six months."

She also claimed that many of those who objected to the original application last year did so due to the fact that it was a self-build scheme.

Objector Derek Davies, however, argued that the self-build element 'tipped the planning balance' in favour of approval last September, and so should not be removed now.

He said: "The removal of this condition is not a minor variation. It creates a fundamentally different scheme and it should be treated as such. When considering the previous application, officers stated that the provision of self-build and custom housing plots must be attributed significant weight.

"Members granted planning permission on that explicit basis. It was not incidental, it was central to the decision. Now, just a few months later, the applicant is seeking to strip away that, and effectively flip the permission."

Most committee members agreed that the scheme should remain self-build.

Councillor Richard Gorton said: "I attached very significant weight to the fact it was self-build. I saw it as a way of helping people who would ordinarily be priced out of the housing market, to get a decent home in the area of their choice.

"I'm surprised the difficulties with a self-build scheme weren't factored in to the original application."

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Councillor Mark Holland said: "Self-build is really important. With national housebuilders, the houses are designed far away by other people, the supply chain is national, the labour that's brought in transfers from project to project. But self-build supports local jobs, supports local people."

Cllr Holland suggested that the committee might not have approved the original application without the condition. The committee voted in favour of his proposal for refusal on the basis that 'significant weight' had been attached to the inclusion of self-build.