A CLASH looks set to loom over a bid to build at least 1,000 new homes on the site of a golf club.

Bloor Homes and Basingstoke Golf Club are bidding to develop the Winchester Road site with up to 1,000 homes and community amenities, opposite the proposed Hounsome Field site.

However, after consultation events held earlier this month, opposition is building to the timeframe for the proposal.

Councillor Terri Reid, ward member for Hatch Warren and Beggarwood, wants a

development brief, also known as a supplementary planning document (SPD), for the site to be produced by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council before an application is decided on.

This would lay out principles for any development on the site which developers would need to work to.

Cllr Reid said: "There is going to be a SPD for the golf club. They may not like it as they want to start digging as soon as they can. They must not think they can get away with that without an SPD in place.

"They have to realise this a very high profile site. It is going to have an impact on a number of residential areas around it."

This view was echoed by Stafford Napier, from the South Western Action Group (SWAG), who said: "We still feel a development brief needs to be made before the planning application is submitted."

John Lusty, regional managing director for Bloor Homes Southern, said: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of 284 people who kindly found the time to visit our recent two-day public exhibition and shared their views with us – it was very informative and will help us enormously in shaping our future proposals for this new neighbourhood.

"The Golf Course has been identified as a location for new homes for well over a decade and was formally acknowledged as suitable by the Government’s independent inspector during his examination of the council’s plan back in 2015. The site has therefore been allocated for approximately 1,000 homes in the adopted Basingstoke Local Plan since 2016.

"The council is now preparing a Development Brief for the site which will be prepared alongside the planning application process.

"It is important to highlight that Bloor Homes is submitting an outline planning application which establishes the access and high-level principles behind the development and not the detailed layout or design of the houses and other community or recreational uses.

"The exact location, layout and detailed designs will be subject to further consultation and take the form of reserved matters applications to be submitted following determination of the outline planning application. We intend to continue our engagement with the community as part of the reserved matters process."

The application is expected to be submitted before the end of the month.

Bloor Homes anticipates a decision on the application by autumn this year, but Cllr Reid believes a SPD is unlikely to be adopted by the borough council until at least October.

For more information about the plan, go to landatbasingstokegolfcourse.co.uk