A six-year dispute over plans to build a controversial housing estate on the outskirts of Canterbury could finally come to an end this month.

A judge has ordered a second planning inquiry into a divisive bid for 85 new homes in the village of Blean - a development locals hoped was "dead and buried".

The application for the houses on farmland behind the Royal Oak pub, which is not designated for housing in the emerging Local Plan, was originally rejected by Canterbury City Council in 2016 but overturned on appeal.

Since then, the scheme has been all the way to the Court of Appeal as the council and developer Gladman Homes have locked horns.

It began when the local authority challenged the planning inspector's original decision in the High Court on the grounds he had misinterpreted local planning policies.

The judge agreed the inspector was wrong to approve the planning appeal, as did the Court of Appeal when the developer later took it to the higher court.

But the subsequent decision to hold a second planning inquiry has surprised some objectors, including the parish council.

The new hearing will open at the Guildhall in Canterbury on Wednesday, February 22, and is expected to last until March 2, during which evidence will be taken in person and the public can attend and speak, at the inspector's discretion.

Much of the delay in holding the new inquiry has been resolving the issue of foul water, and addressing concerns over pollution of the Stodmarsh nature reserve, which Natural England says all new housing development must offset.

Gladman, which says it goes "the country mile" to secure planning permission for landowners, originally proposed creating new wetlands eight miles away at Godmersham as mitigation, but that was rejected by Ashford Borough Council.

Now the developer is incorporating an on-site sewage treatment works at the Blean site instead, which forms part of its revised planning application. Updated flood risk and habitat assessments have also been submitted.

The city council says it will continue to defend its original refusal of the application.

"Our position on the principle of development at this site has not changed, but the decision is now in the hands of the planning inspector," said spokesman Rob Davies.

Blean Parish Council chairman Phil Hutt says he had hoped the application was "dead and buried" after the Court of Appeal ruling.

"We were surprised so see that a new inquiry was going to be held but our original objections still stand.

"We also have fresh concerns about the proposed on-site waste water treatment works discharging into the Swalecliffe brook, which has a chequered past and can only make matters worse."