© LDR Service

A sports club in Halesowen has been given permission to upgrade its ground after a Dudley Council decision was overturned.

Planners at the authority had rejected an application from Coombs Wood Sports and Social Club for improvements at their Stewarts Road ground.

The club appealed to the Planning Inspectorate who reversed the council’s decision that the development was on greenbelt land and should be blocked.

Planning inspector Les Greenwood said: “Although the proposal would represent inappropriate development in the greenbelt, the very special circumstances necessary to justify such development do exist in this case.”

The club, which hosts cricket and bowls, applied to make changes to the exterior of the clubhouse, convert a garage into changing rooms, add a new garage and a new building on the bowls area.

Halesowen North councillor Stuart Henley supported the plan and said the community stood firmly behind the proposal.

Dudley council planners took a different view and decided the development would ‘harm the openness of the greenbelt and would conflict with its fundamental purpose of the greenbelt designation’.

In their report on the application, officers said: “The proposed detached garage and the new bowls structures would also, by reason of their scale, mass, siting and visual prominence would create excessively large overly prominent and uncharacteristic, incongruous additions within this highly sensitive location.”

In a statement supporting the application, Simpatico Town Planning said: “It has become apparent that improved changing facilities are needed to cater for different groups.

“As a by-product of this work, the club wish to take to opportunity to improve safety for visitors, by relocating the existing machinery storage space within the site to a safer and more appropriate location, away from pedestrian movement, in a new dedicated store building.”

In overturning the council’s decision, Mr Greenwood said: “The proposal would significantly enhance outdoor sports and recreational provision for the local community.

“These amount to strong public benefits that would clearly outweigh the harm to the greenbelt.”