A CONTROVERSIAL housing development could soon move a step closer.

Developers behind the 1,400 homes approved for Boorley Green, near Botley have submitted the first stage of their detailed plans for the site to Eastleigh Borough Council.

This comes after the Daily Echo revealed how the council's plans for future housing could see as many as 20,000 more homes in the borough.

The current application by developers is for the first 441 homes of the Boorley Green scheme, which was one of the key controversial sites put forward in the council's abandoned previous local plan for 10,140 homes.

Outline plans for 1,400 homes at Boorley Green was permitted by councillors back in 2013, but campaigners took their battle to get that decision reversed all the way to the High Court before conceding defeat late last year when a judge threw out the case.

This application by Bloor, Bovis and Linden Homes follows an exhibition held in the summer on this first phase attended by around 170 people, many of them still opposed to the scheme.

Although the new application will not change the outcome of the decision to allow Boorley Green to go ahead it details on car parking, road infrastructure, pedestrian/cycle links, foul and surface water drainage networks and landscaping.

It also includes the application to divert a footpath at two points as it passes through the site to enable the development to go ahead.

Residents were asked to choose in 2011 whether to build the 1,400 homes at Boorley Green or at Allington Lane, Fair Oak, as part of a larger development.

But now part of the Allington Lane looks set to be considered for the new Local Plan, which stretches from 2011 to 2036.

As reported, a consultation will ask residents' views on how housing demand should be calculated with figures ranging from 13,800 up to 20,750.

They will also be asked their views on eight sites for where the potential 10,000 homes in greenfield areas should go.