A FORMER Liverpool FC footballer has won a row over planning permission with Warrington Borough Council.

The Planning Inspectorate has found in favour of retired defender Zak Whitbread, who submitted an appeal after the council refused consent for his proposals to build a new home in the grounds of an existing house on Grantham Avenue in Walton.

WBC’s development management committee unanimously rejected the scheme during a Town Hall meeting in January on the grounds that it would not be in-keeping and would be ‘detrimental’ to neighbouring properties, with further worries over the removal of an old tree on the site.

But the three-storey, four-bedroom home – which will also boast its own cinema and a dressing room – on land between 6 and 8 Grantham Avenue will now be built after the government overturned this decision.

However, the Planning Inspectorate did reject an application for the council to pay costs to 36-year-old Whitbread – who grew up in Runcorn and also played for Leicester City, Norwich City, Derby County, Millwall and Shrewsbury Town – in relation to the appeal.

A resident told the Warrington Guardian: “The neighbours are against the size and scale of the development, it’s absolutely massive.

“They’re also concerned about the cutting down of a 100-year-old lime tree to make way for the driveway for the profit of a property developer.

“The trees in this street were apparently put up to acknowledge the war dead.

“One neighbour said to me he’s a second-rate footballer, a third-rate development and a fourth-rate neighbour.”

Centre-back Whitbread has submitted another application for planning permission for a similar development in Appleton, which would see a six-bedroom house constructed on land at 179 London Road.

But a number of members of the public have also submitted objections to this scheme.

No decision has yet been made by the council over this submission.