A controversial plan to build new homes in Lane End has been approved despite many objections to the project.

Shanly Homes Ltd plans to build nine homes on land known locally as the Golden Guff to the south of Finings Road.

The developer amended its application after feedback, including by reducing the overall number of homes from 15 to nine.

Its original plans attracted 85 objections, while its amended – and now approved – plans still drew 81 complaints.

Some of the complaints have focused on the size of the houses in an area where many properties are two storeys.

Shanly’s homes are set to be a mix of two three-bedroom properties, five with four bedrooms and two with five bedrooms.

Five of these will be two storeys, while four will be 2.5 storeys, heights which planners said would ‘assimilate acceptably with the character of Lane End’.

Durning a planning committee meeting, councillors voted to defer and delegate the application to the planning director for approval, subject to conditions about the levels of the new homes.

Cllr Mark Turner told the meeting: “The thing is, whether they are 2.5-storey or two-storey, if they have got very high ridges, then being 9.5m is a very tall building.”

Cllr Paul Turner said: “Just because the quantum of homes has been reduced, we shouldn’t just accept that they will all be bigger, which could have an even more detrimental effect than small houses but with a small nature.”