Furious councillors have branded plans to build 235 new homes on the former Leggatts campus as an “insult”.

Developers had hoped to get permission to build 112 flats and 123 houses on the former college campus, but received short shrift from the council's planning committee last night.

During the meeting councillors labelled plans “cheap” and “woefully inadequate”, saying developers, George Wimpey, were simply out to make as much money as possible.

Planning officers listed 17 separate reasons to reject the plans and the committee took little time to unanimously dismiss the proposal.

Councillor Rabi Martins told the committee he was surprised how little effort the would-be developer had made to think about local residents.

He said: “For me this is just a developer who has come to see how much money he can make.

“I think this is a space for a development to make the town proud and this is just a developer who wants to make money by coming up with the cheapest development possible.”

Planning experts listed the “inappropriate” scale of the development, as well poor parking, the look of the homes and lack of a flood plan among its failings.

Councillor Iain Sharpe offered his own whithering verdict, saying he was amazed so many organisations had raised concerns about the plan.

Sport England, Thames Water, the Highways Agency, the Environment Agency as well as local crime prevention officers have all raised issues with it.

And the councillor said: “I do actually feel this is an insult to the residents of north Watford that the developers come in with such a woefully inadequate scheme when they should be aiming high.

“They owe it to the town, to the local residents and to those people who are going to live in the development to provide something of high quality and this falls massively short of that.”

The developer had hoped to build 22 one-bed flats, 89 two-bed flats and one three-bed flat on land that once housed West Herts College and the Bill Everett Community Centre.

The scheme also included 56 three bedroom and 67 four bedroom houses, as well as a community centre, space for shops and a children's play area. Access to the site was to be created from the A41.

George Wimpey submitted plans to build 248 homes on the site in October last year, but withdrew the plans after officers again picked several holes in the proposal.