Plans for five homes to be built on back garden land were approved, after councillors conceded they were not “bad enough to refuse”.

Woburn Homes Ltd submitted plans for five four-bedroom homes to the rear of 11-17 Garston Drive, Watford.

Access to the site would be via The Pippins, itself a recently built street that serves six homes built on back garden land.

At a meeting of Watford Borough Council's development control committee on Thursday, Sue Saunders, from Rother Close, presented a petition against the scheme, signed by 28 residents, in addition to 15 letters of objection received by the council.

She claimed issues surrounding lack of privacy and lack of access remained, after two similar applications had been refused in September 2007 and January 2008.

The latter decision was upheld by a planning inspector, who said the scheme would result in harm to the living conditions of residents living in Rother Close, due to loss of privacy, and to residents in Pippins Close, due to additional parking and congestion.

However, the committee heard the developers had sought to address those problems by increasing the distance between the proposed homes and those in Rother Close to reduce the loss of privacy.

Additional parking has also been installed to reduce the likelihood of parked vehicles spilling into The Pippins.

Councillor Zoe McQuire said: “This is not good. It's just not bad enough to refuse. I would have been very happy with four houses. The fact is it's awkward and not particularly nice. It's a situation where four houses would have been good, five is a bit unfortunate.”

The application was approved with a majority vote of five to two, with councillors Steve Rackett and Fawziyyah Qureshi voting against the scheme.