Somerset Council has narrowly refused plans to built "completely inappropriate" homes on a car park in Glastonbury.

Mendip District Council entered into a partnership with Aster Housing in November 2020 to deliver up to 160 low-cost homes across five different sites in Frome, Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet and Street.

Aster Housing (which is based in Devizes in Wiltshire) submitted plans in November 2021 to build six homes on the Norbins Road car park in Glastonbury – six months after proposals for 77 homes on the Easthill site in Frome were withdrawn following public outcry.

Somerset Council (which replaced the district council in April 2023) narrowly refused the plans in early-June 2025, arguing the development would lead to traffic issues elsewhere in the town.

The council's planning committee east (which handles major applications within the former Mendip area) met on Tuesday afternoon (November 4) to revisit the proposals, after the site was allocated for housing development within the recently-revised Mendip Local Plan Part II.

But councillors once again narrowly voted against the plans – with Councillor Susannah Hart mounting a passionate defence of residents' right to use the existing car park.

The 52-space car park lies to the east of Norbins Road, within walking distance of St. John the Baptist's Church, the Jumping Johns Nursery and the town's library.

The proposed development would have seen six two-bedroom houses delivered on the brownfield site, all of which would have been offered at social rent.

A total of 14 parking spaces would be retained within the site, with 12 being allocated for residents and two for visitors.

A decision on the plans was significantly delayed as a result of the ongoing phosphates crisis, with developers having to secure additional mitigation to prevent any net increase in phosphates on the Somerset Levels and Moors.

To offset these new homes, Aster intended to purchase phosphate credits generated by the removal of cattle from Manor Farm in Prestleigh, a short distance from the Bath and West Showground.

Since the plans were last debated in early-June, the council has formally adopted the amended Mendip Local Plan Part II – with local councillors warning in late-September that one of the allocated sites may already be undeliverable in light of local sewage capacity.

Since the Norbins Road site is now allocated for housing, the council has to find more concrete reasons to refuse any plans for homes in this location – or it could face another costly appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

Maggie Dear, who has lived on Norbins Road for 31 years, urged the committee to stand firm when it met in Shepton Mallet on Tuesday afternoon (November 4).

Ms Dear – who runs the Norbins Road Car Park Development campaign group on Facebook – said: "This car park is absolutely vital to the people who live, work and visit here.

"Parking is already under severe pressure in this part of the town. The car park isn't some under-used patch of Tarmac; it is in constant use.

"I cannot state how calamitous the loss of this parking would be to us as local residents."

Dr Virginia Mortimer, who lives near the site, added: "There is a huge amount of antipathy among Glastonbury residents to this proposal, and disbelief that it is being brought up again.

"The proposal would produce extremely dense, overcrowded housing – which might be acceptable in a city, where all the noise and overlooking may be tolerated, but not in a small market town."

Councillor Susannah Hart (whose Glastonbury division includes the site) spoke passionately against the plans, arguing that the site should never have been allocated for housing and that approving the plans would hurt both local residents and the town's businesses.

She said: "Adopting this into the Mendip Local Plan Part II was plain and simple an error of judgement – it's shouldn't be in there.

"There is insufficient parking in this town, even for the residents and locals who need to come in and park there – that's before you had in another layer of huge tourist footfall.

"To take away more parking is mind-bogglingly ridiculous to me. It is completely inappropriate.

"This is a rural area – this isn't inner city Birmingham where you can walk or catch a bus."

Councillor Ros Wyke, who chaired the meeting, argued that the plans would help to ease the "tragedy" of Glastonbury's housing crisis, thereby helping to reduce the number of caravans and other temporary accommodation in the town.

Ms Wyke (who represents the neighbouring Mendip West division) said: "We have a huge waiting list in Somerset, and particularly in Glastonbury we see people living in far from ideal accommodation – in trailers and caravans throughout the town, I think in excess of 200 of them.

"For some of them, maybe it is a lifestyle choice, but for a lot of people accommodation in Glastonbury is really troublesome.

"I do not believe that there isn't a need for affordable and social housing in Glastonbury, and I'm very disappointed that people have said otherwise."

After around 90 minutes' debate, the committee voted to refuse the plans by six votes to five, with two abstentions.

Aster Housing has not yet indicated whether it intends to appeal the committee's decision.