Homes planned for a new housing estate near Coalville have been slammed as 'poor' and 'crammed onto the site' after it was revealed that almost half of their gardens were 'too small'.

The 50 homes will be built on land south of Main Street in Stanton under Bardon, which was listed in the Domesday Book, and were given an initial approval by the council in June 2023.

Developer Allison Homes is now asking Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council (HBBC) to approve the final details of the scheme, such as the layout of the estate, the size of the homes, and landscaping and open space.

It has also asked if it can reduce the number of 'affordable' homes it promised to provide from 20 to eight, saying it had not been able to find a registered housing provider which would buy all 20.

At a planning committee meeting last week, council officer Tim Hartley explained to councillors that 24 of the 50 proposed homes had gardens which did not meet the council's guidance. One was 13 sq m smaller than guidelines, while two, three-bedroom properties had gardens that were 50 sq m instead of 80 sq m.

Mr Hartley told committee members that council officers had hoped that "a far lower percentage than 48 per cent" of the properties would have gardens that did not meet the council's guidelines.

Of the now-proposed eight 'affordable' homes, Mr Hartley said that six would be given to HBBC as council housing stock, and two would be sold to first-time buyers. According to the plans, there will be a total of 10 two-beds, 29 three-beds and 11 four-bed homes built on the site.

William Marshall, an agent speaking on behalf of the developer, said the homes would be "high quality" and, because they were two-to-four bed properties, would "meet the local need for housing". He said the 4,240 sq m of open space on the development would provide extra outdoor space for residents, and be used for "local events and outdoor activities".

But Councillor Stuart Bray said he was "fed up" with developers coming back to the authority once an application had been approved and saying they could no longer provide affordable housing. "It's always at this stage where these problems all of a sudden develop," he said. "I think [the layout of the homes is] quite poor, I think it's too much crammed into too poor of a space.

"I'm not happy with some of the garden standards." Coun Bray said council officers needed to take the scheme back to the developer, adding that if the issues had not been solved when it came back before the committee, he would be "minded to refuse".

Chairman of the committee Councillor Joyce Crooks said the council expected developers to adhere to the borough's standards, adding that providing less affordable housing than required by the authority "undermines our policy, and I'm not happy with that at all". Councillors voted unanimously to defer the decision so planning officers could negotiate with the developer to change some of the issues raised during the meeting.

The village, which has a population of around 1,000 according to Stanton under Bardon Parish Council, dates back to the early medieval period. Residents made 15 objections to the council over the outline application for the scheme, voicing fears over flooding, the potential impact on wildlife and the countryside, highway safety and the possibility of existing on-street parking issues being made worse. Allison Homes bought the land after the council gave its approval for the outline application.

The site had been included as a reserve site to meet the village's housing requirements in the 2020 draft Bagworth, Thornton and Stanton under Bardon neighbourhood plan; however, the borough council says a later version of the plan had removed housing allocations altogether.