PLANS to convert a disused school playing field into an additional car park for a health club have been turned down.

Cannons Club in Nightingale Lane, St Albans, had applied to St Albans District Council to build a 65-space overflow car park on a plot of land attached to the playing fields of Francis Bacon School, between Highfield Park Drive and the club itself.

Although the playing field is not in use, the planning committee heard on Wednesday, last week, that it was in the Green Belt.

Speaking in favour of the development, Councillor Robert Donald said: 'I would normally be among the first to protest against such a development but this battle was lost 15 years ago when we gave up the fight and approved the then St Albans squash club plans in 1985.

'Traffic congestion in Hill End Lane would be far worse if we refuse this, and parking problems would merely aggravate this.

'This particular piece of land has never been used for sport, it is a dead piece of land which is of no benefit to either the school or the community.'

The debate centred on the recent refusal of planning permission for parking spaces at the Midway doctors' surgery, in Watford Road, on Green Belt grounds.

Councillor Gordon Myland said: 'We turned down an application for eight spaces at the surgery recently, so for us to be talking about 65 spaces in Green Belt land here is very strange.'

That view was echoed by Councillor John Wright, who commented: 'We're gobbling up all the Green Belt, and I just wonder where it will end if we grant this.'

Despite an offer of £35,000 by the health club's owners, Cannons Health and Fitness Limited, towards the cost of providing a full-sized synthetic all-weather pitch which Francis Bacon pupils would have access to, councillors turned down the plans on Green Belt grounds.