A PLAN to expand a village by more than a third has been rejected by councillors.

But Stockton Borough Council's unelected planning officers have decided to 'invoke a protocol' - which means the scheme to build up to 145 homes and new village green at Kirklevington, near Yarm, must be considered again.

The planning officers had recommended the new homes be approved but councillors on the planning committee were impressed by arguments from 18 villagers who said the village would no longer be "sustainable."

Council officers said that the reasons for rejecting the plan would be unlikely to be accepted by the Department for Communities and Local Government on appeal and they needed further consideration.

Nearly 300 people have objected to the plan and almost 100 villagers attended the planning meeting at Stockton Baptist Tabernacle on Wednesday.

The proposal by Stockton developers, Jomast, for farmland south of Pump Lane, would include creating a convenience store, bowling-green, tennis courts and a dedicated school parking zone. The development would be supported by "substantial landscaped buffers," village green and linear park, according to the application.

Jomast would pay for a bus service between Kirklevington and Stockton for five years to ensure the village remained "sustainable" under Government and council guidelines.

However, the planning committee agreed with objectors that the plan was too big for the village, that there are flooding concerns, issues of highway safety, increased traffic and the village is already designated as not sustainable partly due to transport issues.

There was concern at the meeting that another plan to build a further 100 homes less than a mile away had been received by the council the very morning the Jomast proposal was due to be discussed.

One villager, George Hartley, spoke at the meeting to bring up the scale of development proposed for south Stockton, even without mentioning new house building proposals at Ingleby Barwick.

He said: "There is overdevelopment. Already at Green Lane (near Yarm), there's 370 homes being built ant there's 330 for the Tall Trees site, 350 at Mount Leven, 350 at Low Lane (Yarm) and 300 at Morley Carr Farm. That's 1,70 and now we hear there's plans from Theakstone's to build another 100. These developments will bring 8,000 people and 4,000 more cars. We are past the tipping point of overdevelopment."

Steve Hesmondhalgh, planning consultant for Jomast, pointed to the extra facilities being offered including the bus service, and said the authority was not able to demonstrate it was supplying enough houses for estimated increases in population. He said: "This scheme is about more than just houses. Not many applications have this many benefits as part of it."

Councillors rejected the proposal by nine votes to two (with one abstention) on the grounds that the village would no longer be sustainable and there were highway safety concerns.

However, chief planning officer Barry Jackson said there had been no objections from appropriate consultation bodies.

The matter must now be considered once again once planning officers have further investigated the grounds of rejecting the plan.