MORE than 700 homes look set to be built on land opposite Basingstoke Golf Club after councillors supported plans to make changes to the borough’s draft Local Plan last week.

As previously reported in The Gazette, planning inspector Mike Fox, who will assess the housing blueprint, advised Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to adopt a yearly figure of around 850 new homes, rather than the 748 previously agreed by the borough council.

In January, the council’s Cabinet agreed on 853 homes per year as the figure for the Local Plan.

This means the council will now need to build an extra 1,836 homes between now and 2029.

Councillors on the borough council’s economic, planning and housing committee were asked to consider a recommendation on how to make this additional number at a meeting last Wednesday.

The committee voted to approve an officer recommendation to include land known as Hounsome Fields, on the A30 near Dummer, in the Local Plan to provide an extra 750.

The committee also approved a recommendation to include an extra 150 homes in urban and brownfield development sites and a number of contingency homes, which will then reduce the contingency figure from 1,093 to 227.

In addition, councillors supported a plan to increase the range of jobs expected to be created across the borough each year to between 450 and 700.

Despite this, several councillors voiced their concerns over the impact the increased housing building figures to the west of Basingstoke and how it would affect residents living in Hatch Warren and Beggarwood.

Councillor Terri Reid, ward member for Hatch Warren and Beggarwood, told the meeting: “I have serious concerns over the potential impact on my residents regarding the development of the golf club and Hounsome Fields in particular, and the cumulative effects of those and Kennel Farm and the other pockets of Beggarwood which are earmarked for development.

“I would urge sufficient and robust planning and funding of infrastructure and that infrastructure should come before or with the developments and not after.”

Councillors also raised concern over a £190million infrastructure funding shortfall to provide improvements to roads, leisure facilities and the expansion of GP surgeries and schools across the borough.

But Cabinet member for planning, Cllr Mark Ruffell, told the meeting: “These are not all black and white issues, they are grey. They are a wish list and they are desirable. If a lot of them didn’t happen, the congestion and misery of the slowness of life would not cause life to stop and that is what the inspector will look at.”

Liberal Democrats group leader, Cllr Gavin James, added: “I think it is absolutely the right site.”

If the changes are approved by councillors at a full council meeting on March 26, a public consultation will be held in May or June and the Local Plan will be formally submitted later this year, in either October or November.