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A housing developer is trying for a fourth time to get permission to build 120 homes on fields off a quiet country lane in a Leicestershire village.

Davidsons is seeking outline planning for the homes in Kirkby Road, The main access for the scheme is from a narrow road which runs past the village primary school, a couple of hundred yards away.

Hinckley and Bosworth borough councillors for homes on the Ashfield Farm site after residents repeatedly objected.

The developer first failed to get permission to build on the back in 2015, when councillors agreed it would significantly exceed the village’s housing needs.

A 2019 application was turned down because of its impact on the “value, beauty and open character” of the land, and because of the increase in traffic on the narrow road leading to it.

Some 203 people wrote in with objections to the most recent application in 2021. It was subsequently turned due to concerns about its impact on the rural character of the village, loss of countryside and congestion. Davidsons appealed to the Secretary of State to overturn that decision, but then dropped the appeal.

If it went ahead now it would become the fourth big new housing estate to be built in the village in recent years.

A planning statement prepared on behalf of Davidsons Developments, which is based in nearby Ibstock, says the benefits of building on the green field site would include what it calls “significant biodiversity net gain” and, it says, would outweigh the adverse impacts. It said 40 per cent of the new homes would be affordable.