ANGRY Eastleigh residents have claimed that plans to put a housing society headquarters on their doorstep could create a traffic nightmare.

Swaythling Housing Society want to build a four-storey office block and maintenance depot in Bishopstoke Road on one of the major approaches to the town centre.

A Mercedes showroom and The Capital - the former Eastleigh Boys' Club - are being re-located which would free up the prime site.

Eastleigh planners are recommending that outline permission should be given for the Swaythling Housing Society to build its new headquarters at Bishopstoke Road. The new building would have enough room for 200 staff.

But the Over the Bridge Residents Association (OTBRA) will voice its protests when the planning application is debated by the Eastleigh Local Area Committee on Tuesday night. The residents' association fear that vehicle movements at the housing society headquarters, including tenants calling for advice, would create a traffic bottleneck on a vital road artery to the town centre.

In a statement the association says: "This, added to the unlikely development of the Chickenhall Link, means that an already acknowledged overused road will become a traffic nightmare."

OTBRA says it is also opposing the scheme because of the sheer scale of the development and its environmental impact on the important wildlife habitat.

It also fears that the effect of drainage from the buildings and car parking is likely to cause further pollution to the Barton River, especially during heavy rain. OTBRA's chairman Jonathan Tapscott says: "The local residents feel very strongly that Swaythling Housing Association had made the wrong choice of site for such a development."

And he claimed: "It would be a blot on a beautiful landscape and undoubtedly lower property values."

He said that association members would be at Tuesday's local area committee meeting.

Swaythling Housing Society needs to move because it has outgrown its current headquarters down the road at Swaythling.

But a Society spokesman says that the Bishopstoke Road site was just one of the options they were investigating.

In a report to councillors planning chiefs say it is a good location for a new headquarters for the Swaythling Housing Society.

They also point out that the site is already committed to commercial development.