A nursery school cannot be built on Colchester's new Turner Rise development.

A meeting of Colchester Council's planning and traffic regulation committee last night agreed the proposed nursery and housing should not be built on the area between Turner Road and Thornton Drive.

The land had been earmarked for Essex County Council to build a school. However, as the county council has not taken up the offer of the land it has reverted back to the developer.

A report said the failure to secure the site for a primary school had caused ill-feeling.

As the county council did not take on the offer of the land one third of the net proceeds from its sale will be given to the education authority.

At the meeting, Turner Rise resident and chairman of the residents association Susan Stewart spoke against the plans.

She said it would cause traffic problems and added the facility was not needed.

Nicholas Taylor (Con, Mile End) also spoke at the meeting and echoed Mrs Stewart's concerns. He said the residential side of the plans were agreeable.

The meeting voted in favour of refusing the plans on the grounds the development would be detrimental to the area for residents and the land was included in a zone earmarked for housing.

Plans to build a 99 place nursery on car parking spaces at the Stanway Garden Centre, Colchester, have been put on hold while more information is gathered.

Councillors will ask the applicant to provide information about the catchment area before considering the application further.

Officers had recommended the plans for refusal, however the councillors decided they wanted more information before they made up their minds.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.