DEVELOPERS of a planned £500,000 park-and-ride scheme at Bishop's Stortford Football Club have been refused planning permission.

East Herts councillors feared the venture could compete commercially with parking at Stansted Airport.

The development control and enforcement sub-committee also ruled the 287-space car park, on Green Belt land already used for parking, would detract from the character and appearance of the area and push parking into surrounding roads on match days.

The planning refusal marks the end of 15 months work by M&D Developments to get the project off the ground. A number of multinational companies were interested in operating the car park.

M&D Developments manager David Harris said the committee's decision was 'horrendous'.

'What have people got to do to convince the councillors that we have a serious parking problem in Bishop's Stortford? The Chamber of Commerce supports the park-and-ride, the town planning committee and traders support it, but the committee members take it upon themselves to refuse it. They just refuse to admit there's a parking problem, it defies belief.'

He said a large proportion of the development's spaces were tariffed because it made commercial sense, not because the development was trying to compete with Stansted car parking.

'When you're dealing with a development that costs over £100,000 then you've got to try and get the books to balance.'

Mr Harris said he would watch with interest as parking problems became more acute in the town when planned developments got underway.

However, he was thinking of appealing against the decision or submitting a revised application.

Bishop's Stortford Chamber of Commerce chairman John Gearing said the chamber was disappointed that the development was not going ahead.

Mr Gearing said he understood concerns that the development could compete commercially with airport parking, but believed M&D should submit a reworked application.

Bryan Steward, director of local department store Pearson's was 'bitterly disappointed' the development was not going ahead because more car parking was desperately needed in the town.

'Park-and-ride has worked well in other towns such as Lincoln and Nottingham. It's so easy and it takes next to no time.

'I had three appointments today and all three of them were late solely because they couldn't find anywhere to park.'

He did not accept that the site would compete with Stansted.

In opposing the application, Stansted Airport Cars had said: 'This application is a blatant attempt to commercially exploit the proximity of the site to Stansted Airport. There is no other logical purpose for the operation.'