PARISH leaders have thrown out plans to build nine houses in a narrow strip of land in a leafy New Forest village.

Ashurst and Colbury Parish Council's planning committee voted unanimously against the controversial scheme proposed for Foxhills in Whartons Lane.

The Daily Echo reported last week how up to 70 residents packed into a protest meeting in the village hall to try and halt the plans.

Villagers said the development would cram too many homes into an unsuitably small plot of land, increasing traffic on an already dangerous road and altering the character of the area. Members of the public packed into the village hall again for the council meeting to keep up the pressure on the campaign.

Councillor Pete Sopowski, chairman of the planning committee, said members had already registered their opposition with New Forest District Council.

He urged residents against the scheme to attend the district council's planning committee meeting when the application came up, a date for which has not yet been set, to ensure the application was thrown out.

He said: "You never know what actual planning officers will say. They might think it's a great idea. Hopefully they won't. The affected people have to go there on the day of the committee and speak with cogent reasons. It's a democracy and if you don't show up there they may not realise the scale of objection against the scheme."

A spokesman for the applicants, represented by Millbrook-based architect Tony Oldfield, was not present at the planning meeting. But Mr Oldfield had earlier told the Daily Echo he did not think the site was being overdeveloped or that the Highways Agency would object to the scheme.