5:10pm Thursday 22nd October 2009
By Matt Smith
SOUTHAMPTON councillors are joining objecters to controversial plans to carpet countryside on the border of the city with 350 new homes.
The trustees of the Barker Mill Estate want to build a 27-acre housing estate off Redbridge Lane, Nursling.
They claim the development will support new places in nearby schools, improvements to the village hall and playing pitches, and help Test Valley Borough Council hit its housing targets.
But Southampton councillors have now joined villagers in objecting to the application.
Labour councillor Peter Marsh Jenks, who represents Redbridge, warned: “The development would place extra pressure on Southampton amenities and schools which, I assume, Test Valley Borough Council do not intend to fund.
“I do not see why Redbridge residents should suffer the consequences of overdevelopment in another council’s area.”
Conservative councillor and parliamentary candidate for the west of the city, Jeremy Moulton, added: “The land is clearly defined as part of the local gap and therefore it is not appropriate for housing to go here.”
It comes as a new Ordnance Survey head office is being built nearby as part of an emerging business park alongside the M271.
Nursling parish councillor Nigel Anderdon said villagers fear they will be over-run by traffic and will lose their identity.
“The people like to have a village atmosphere and to feel they are living in the countryside, not a city,” he said.
The development would include 297 houses and 53 flats. Forty per cent would be “affordable” housing.
The site is designated as countryside and a “local gap” between Nursling and Southampton in the adopted Test Valley Borough Local Plan 2006.
The woodland to the north is a site of importance for nature conservation.
Test Valley councillors have already rejected the need for an environmental impact assessment.
Lisa Jackson, director at planning agents Turley Associates, said it had worked hard on an eco-friendly scheme that met the council’s aspirations for the area.
She said: “A decision is expected before the end of the year and we believe this scheme will enable Test Valley Borough Council to move towards meeting housing targets.”
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