MORE than 100 anxious residents packed into Ashton Keynes Village Hall last week for a public meeting to discuss a contentious plan to build 39 homes on a greenfield site in the village.

A number of speakers presented at the event, including north Wiltshire’s MP James Gray, who described the plans as “completely and utterly unacceptable”.

Organisers had put laptops at the back of the hall with the planning page on Wiltshire Council’s website open, making it easy for people to object to the plans there and then.

The site will include a car park/drop-off area for the school on Mill Fields and is currently pastured land in a conservation area outside the village settlement boundary.

More than 120 people have submitted opposition statements to the plans.

At the meeting Mr Gray said the plans would not be allowed “under any sensible planning scheme”.

He went on to raised concerns that many developers are putting in speculative planning applications before the Wiltshire Core Strategy is passed, which would restrict certain developments in the county.

Mike Smith, who heads up an action group scrutinising the plans on behalf on the community, lives a stone’s throw from the proposed site.

He gave a detailed, critical review of the plans at the meeting, which went some way to allaying residents’ fears about the likelihood of the site going ahead.

One issue he raised was flooding concerns. Some of the site is in what is known as flood zone two, meaning the area would flood once every 100 years.

Mr Smith pointed out the village had previously flooded in the 1920s, 40s, and 50s, a problem he argued would be made worse by the site.

“When it pours with rain, the land [in Ashton Keynes] saturates and slowly lets water out into the river to drain away,” he explained.

“The problem with building houses in a flood plain, is water cannot get through.

“This volume of water that would be absorbed, goes somewhere else.

“There is no mention of any of the site neighbours in the report.”

The site will also be raised by another foot, which could make the situation worse, Mr Smith claimed.

Another issue he raised was the effects on traffic the site will cause.

Mr Smith worked out there would by 784 cars travelling in and out of the site each day, roughly one event minute, excluding at night.

The only entrance to the site is on a blind corner of a road that has seen four major incidents on the past ten years.

A recent community speedwatch scheme found that 33 drivers exceeded the 40mph limit on the road in just one hour.

Mr Smith raised a number of other concerns, including the house designs, which he described as a “copy and paste job, and disabled access to the site, which he said was inadequate.

Parish council chairman, Dave Wingrove, then spoke, before the meeting was opened up to the floor.

He said the site doesn’t fit in with the draft neighbourhood plan, which he has been involved in creating.

He went on to say that the issue of school places, which there is already pressure on, will be made worse by the proposals.

When given the opportunity, residents spoke out about their concerns for the plans.

One resident, who had lived in the village for 40 years, said: “The access for emergency service vehicles is dire in Gosditch, this plan would make it far worse.”

The fire services have already publicly objected to the plans on similar grounds, Mr Smith said in response.

Alan Rudd, who lives at Dairy Farm, backing on the site, said that the parking during drop-off times at the school was becoming a serious problem, something the plans might help alleviate.

“This is an ongoing problem as the school has got bigger,” he said.

“I’m fed up of seeing cars parked opposite our entrance and trucks going over the corner, moving the kerb stones.

“That’s the only positive thing I can think of from this site.”

The application for the site was submitted by Mr C Patridge, who has been contacted for a comment.

The plans will be discussed at a parish council meeting on Wednesday evening.

The consultation period finishes on Thursday and a decision is expected to be made on the plans by October 31.

For more information on the application visit the Wiltshire Council website at wiltshire.gov.uk and search for planning application reference 16/07440/FUL.