CIVIC chiefs have approved the latest stage of controversial plans to build thousands of homes on Hampshire countryside.

Eastleigh Borough Council’s Local Plan sets out a blueprint for 10,140 homes at sites across the area until 2029.

The contentious document is the council’s strategy for long-term development and will form the basis for future planning decisions.

Plans include 330 extra new homes on greenfield land north of Fair Oak and 750 homes west of Horton Heath at Chalcroft Farm.

As previously reported, moves to create a vision for housing in the area sparked widespread opposition.

Protesters even took to the streets in Botley amid plans to build more than 1,000 homes at Boorley Green.

Botley Parish Council is planning to launch a judicial review into the proposals, claiming it will lead to traffic chaos and damage the countryside setting.

There has also been opposition over plans to build homes at Stoneham Park, Eastleigh.

Members have now agreed their preference to include 800 homes off Woodhouse Lane, Hedge End, after Hampshire County Council reversed its decision not to allow development there, which halted the previous plan.

A public consultation on the new draft plan saw numerous exhibitions across the borough during November. At the latest full council meeting councillors approved the Revised Presubmission plan, which will now go out to public consultation again on February 10, but this is only to seek views on the “soundness” of the plan – that the processes that the council went through were correct, not what land should be included.

The plan and objections to it will then be submitted to the Secretary of State for examination.

The council says it has considered comments from more than 1,200 people on the revised draft local plan published last October and the result is the current version.

Liberal Democrat council leader Keith House said: “It is essential that we make plans to meet the housing needs of our communities over the coming decades and secure the roads, infrastructure, schools and services for local people.”