Agricultural land outside a Warwickshire village, recently withdrawn from development plans, has been approved for 160 homes by "resigned" councillors.

Land to the southeast of Oakley Wood Road at Bishop's Tachbrook is being primed for development by Sharba Homes, a company based in the rural village of Croglin, Cumbria, a decade on from being knocked back by Warwick District Council.

Elected officials on the planning committee questioned the evidence of need for more housing in Bishop's Tachbrook specifically, why officers – the council's employed professionals – were advocating approval for a site that was recently pulled out of the emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan and a pedestrian access to another new housing development on the other side of the road crossing a 50 miles-per-hour (mph) road.

Nevertheless, the council's development manager Gary Fisher was unflinching in his advice around new national planning policies which state that councils without a five-year housing land supply afford "substantial weight" in favour of building on unallocated sites outside established settlement areas, provided developments can connect into them and be shaped to fit them appropriately.

Bishop's Tachbrook Parish Council chair Keith Wellsted said that the district's lack of adequate land supply was "not a blank cheque" for developers, stating the site is "entirely" outside of the housing growth area planned for the village and would create "a car-dependent island".

The volume of homes already primed for the village is a bone of contention, with Mr Wellsted adding: "You want to cover us in houses."

Representing the applicant, Mark Sitch of planning firm Twenty5 played down the relevance of the site being taken out of the South Warwickshire Local Plan, stating that it "relies on early large windfall sites such as this" to reach the area's housing targets. Mr Fisher later acknowledged that "most plans take that into consideration" and that omission from the upcoming plan did not make this site unsuitable for development.

Provision of 40 per cent affordable housing and £1.3 million contributions to infrastructure like schools and GP surgeries were also referenced by Mr Sitch.

Councillors remained unconvinced with Cllr Robert Margrave concerned that access to the north of the site, connecting it with essential village amenities, currently have no footpaths to connect to.

One of the biggest red flags for councillors was Warwickshire County Council highways professional Karen Watkins being "a little confused" by the second southern pedestrian connection over the 50-mph stretch of Oakley Wood Road, and while most councillors accepted that updated national rules gave them no means to refuse the plan, they have asked planning and highways professionals to discuss the prospect of reducing the speed limit to 30 mph.

Even then, Cllr Margrave, who was told that the district could not dictate the speed limit as it was the county council's responsibility, was not exactly comfortable.

He asked: "Do we have any evidence that county ever listen? All of this seems very unsatisfactory.

"We are doing it based on 'well, they might so something, they might not'. It leaves me feeling very uneasy that we are just saying words that are going to get ignored."

Planning chair Cllr Alan Boad replied: "Unfortunately, that's the way the system works."

He went on to check the committee was "happy" it knew what it was voting for with Cllr Bill Gifford replying through a wry smile: "I wouldn't use the word happy."

Cllr Boad summed up the sentiment by amending that to: "You're resigned to what you are doing." Cllr Gifford nodded and said: "Correct."

Eight out of 10 councillors voted for outline approval, which means the principle of development and means of access is established but a further application on the rest of the details must be considered and approved at a later date.

Cllr Naveen Tangrim, who raised concerns over provision to mitigate flooding, voted against and Cllr Kyn Aizlewood abstained – the formal means of declining to vote either way.