A Warwick coach company's plans for expansion have been blocked by the district council.

Ridleys Coaches Ltd had applied for planning permission to turn an area of grassland next to its Stratford Road base into a much bigger parking area for its coaches.

The application said no buildings would be built, but the 7,200 sq metres of scrubland would be hard paved in order to provide up to 72 new spaces.

Ridleys said the land would be used for staff parking as well as for storing its coaches.

It also said that a two metre high fence would be built around the perimeter.

Ridleys, which provides transport for schools, tourism, private hire, and businesses, already has space for parking coaches, as well as an office building and facilities for fuelling, cleaning, and maintaining the coach fleet.

While Warwick Town Council raised no issues with the expansion scheme, five objections were made.

This included one from Warwickshire County Council's highways team which said: "Insufficient information has been provided to fully assess the highways impacts of the proposals."

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While Warwick District Council, refusing the application, said: "Officers raise significant concerns with the proposed expansion of the coach parking area on several grounds.

"It is felt that insufficient information has been provided to determine the impacts of the development from a heritage, archaeological, landscape, highway safety, air quality, flooding and ecological perspective."

The council report also said officers has no objection in principle to expanding the coach store, but said little effort had been made to "mitigate the impact upon the setting of grade I registered Castle Park".

The report added: "The fact that no heritage statement has been submitted suggests that there has been little consideration or attempt to recognise the setting of this heritage asset.

"The plans do not show either the existing tree/hedge line to the north is to be retained.

"It is felt that the reinforcement of a green buffer would potentially mitigate the detrimental impact caused to the setting of the registered park and garden, however in its current form, the proposal is not supported as it fails to preserve the setting of this designated heritage asset."