Councillors have insisted that a bungalow in Chapel Lane, Ramsbury, should be torn down because they felt the owner was making a mockery of the planning system.

Resident Gwynne Davies had applied for planning permission to build a replacement home in the garden of Orchard Cottage but had told Kennet District Council that his intention was to demolish the original bungalow once its replacement was up and habitable.

The council therefore made a condition of the planning permission that the original Orchard Cottage should be pulled down, rather than lie derelict in the garden of the new house.

But now Mr Davies has thought better of the idea and wants to keep Orchard Cottage and its replacement.

Ramsbury Parish Council is adamant that the demolition condition is adhered to because "no argument has been put forward for the removal of the condition".

At Thursday's meeting of Kennet's regulatory committee, Coun Chris Humphries said the applicant was trying to make capital out of the situation while Coun Rosemary Cummins added that it would establish a precedent.

Coun Dominic Campbell talked of "planning creep". He said: "He got half a loaf on the first shot and now he is coming back for the other half."

But committee chairman John Booth said councillors needed a better reason than that if they were to refuse the application and not face an expensive rebuff at appeal.

Senior planning officer Mike Wilmott said that the original planning application would probably have been approved without the condition to demolish the original house because there were separate accesses to both properties and the available land was big enough for two houses.

Coun Ray Parsons said that it was criminal to destroy a house just for the sake of some ideology.

The committee voted narrowly to refuse the application for a change of condition and insist on the demolition of the bungalow going ahead.