THIS is how a new 1,400-home estate will look in under two years – if controversial plans to bulldoze a Hampshire golf course are given the go-ahead.
Developers want to concrete over the greens and fairways at Botley Park Hotel and build nearly seven times as many homes as there are currently in the tiny neighbouring village of Boorley Green.
As well as the massive housing scheme, the proposals include a new primary school, community buildings, sports pitches, an energy centre and retail employment areas.
A mixture of two, three, four and five-bedroom terraced and detached houses and flats would be built on the huge site. An application could be submitted by the end of the month for the plans, which have gone on public view for the first time at an exhibition in Botley Park Hotel.
The consortium behind the scheme – Ashill Developments, Southern & Regional Developments and Macdonald Hotels – say they have worked hard to consult with the community as they shape their proposals. If the planning process goes as they hope, building work could begin in 18 months.
But many of the protesters who came to see the new vision remained fearful that the huge increase in housing would create traffic misery in the small country lanes surrounding the site and ruin their tranquil way of life.
A spokesman for the Botley Parish Action Group called the plans “unsound, ineffective and unjustified”.
The group has already called for the plans to be thrown out and are calling on residents to raise objections. Alan Benson, who lives on nearby Winchester Street, said: “It is going to destroy Boorley Green, totally and utterly.”
Botley golf course was one of the sites earmarked for development in Eastleigh Borough Council ’s draft local plan, which is out for consultation for another month and which must still be approved by an independent inspector.
Originally it had been promised that any development there would include a proposed Botley bypass to help alleviate traffic problems. But Hampshire County Council ruled out the scheme for the next 20 years and the dependency of the development on the bypass has been removed from the local plan.
Under the council’s planning blueprint, up to 1,000 homes would also be built at Woodhouse Lane, less than a mile from the Boorley Green site.
