A planned housing development on a Waunfawr field which sparked a Village Green bid and a bitter legal battle between residents and Ceredigion County Council has been withdrawn.

In 2021, a group of residents launched a legal battle with the county council hoping to have the Erw Goch field behind Hafan y Waun designated as a village green in order to protect it from a council bid to build more than 70 new homes in conjunction with Wales and West Housing on the site.

The planning application, which included permission for a 40 home section and outline permission for a further 37 on the site was put on hold while the legal battle played out.

In response to the Village Green application, the council brought in external lawyers to fight the village green designation, claiming “statutory incompatibility” – with the land’s commercial value plummeting as its use is severely restricted.

Ceredigion council argued that the land is still held for educational purposes despite its plans to use it for homes because the land was bought by the-then Cardiganshire County Council in June 1965 as a proposed site for a new Ardwyn Grammar School.

The council’s extended legal battles and use of independent legal assessors to defend the development provoked criticism, with FOI requests revealing the council spent over £40,000 opposing the village green bid.

Despite councillors voting against the council’s wishes and solicitor advice initially, members back-tracked and blocked the Village Green application in September 2024, ending a three year long battle.

However, the move led to threats of a further legal challenge by the campaign group Friends of Erw Goch, who launched an application in the High Court for a judicial review to quash the decision.

The housing development plans when first proposed received scores of objections from residents over traffic and drainage fears as well as the loss of green space.

It was set to include a specialist learning disability facility along with social housing.

While objectors said there are “grave concerns” over the proposed homes, in planning documents, Wales and West Housing said the development will provide a “range of affordable and open market housing tenures” as well as provide a new learning disability facility which would offer “long-term benefits to repatriate a number of out-of-county placements, whilst at the same time delivering significant overall cost savings” to the council.

Objectors to the housing scheme said “the fields of Erw Gôch provide an essential accessible green space for the communities of Waun Fawr, Llanbadarn Fawr, and Comins Coch.”

Ceredigion MP Ben Lake also objected to the scheme saying he had “serious concerns about both the scale of this development and the appropriateness of its location.”

A planning meeting in 2021 where the plans were deferred until the Village Green application was dealt with heard there was “overwhelming objections to these plans in the local community and in wider Aberystwyth.”

Ceredigion County Council’s planning portal now shows the plans were withdrawn by developers on 1 June.