A HAMPSHIRE town is set for an extra 2,000 new homes - just months after controversial plans for 6,000 homes were given the go ahead, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Council bosses in Fareham have today announced it must find room for the extra houses to meet demand and stop unwanted developments forced upon them.

However the news has been met with anger from campaigners who have accused the council of breaking a promise made when passing the controversial 6,000-home community at Welborne just four months ago.

Furious protestors claim Welborne, north of Fareham, was sold on the basis it would protect the rest of the borough from further development and that now housing developers would be “dancing in the fields” after council bosses refused to rule out building on treasured countryside.

Councillor Sean Woodward, leader of Fareham Borough Council, admitted that he expected countryside areas could be put forward as potential sites, but said the plans were a necessity as the council must extend its blueprint for future housing by another 10 years.

This will bring it in line with the Welborne plan, which due to its scale will run until 2036 - ten years after the council’s current local plan ends.

The figure of 2,000 homes is based in part on the total required housing for the region calculated by the Partnership of Urban South Hampshire (PUSH).

As a result, next month the council will be calling on anyone that owns land in the borough to come forward if they would like it to be considered for the extra homes.

Daily Echo:

Cllr Woodward said the council would be looking first at brownfield sites but could not guarantee no building on green areas and the council says opportunities in Fareham town centre could be key.

Areas under consideration include around the council offices, the multi-storey car park at Osborn Road and the car park at Market Quay and also combining the Ashcroft Arts Centre and Ferneham Hall into one facility.

The council would also be open to considering proposals in the Portchester district area, including Portchester precinct, such as redevelopment to provide more homes or mixed retail and accommodation developments.

Cllr Woodward said plans for Welborne, passed in June, had been constrained to 6,000 homes so could not have taken these extra numbers and insisted there were no plans to build another such community to accommodate the extra 2,000.

He admitted that he expected controversial plans which have been mooted for 1,550 homes on land in the ‘strategic gap’ of countryside between Fareham and Stubbington - a development called Newlands - to be among suggestions put forward to the council.

But Cllr Woodward said the council would continue to defend its two strategic gaps designed to preserve the identity of communities - between Fareham and Titchfield and Fareham and Stubbington.

He pointed to an ageing population as part of the reason behind the pressure on the council for homes and argued that many modern dwellings are housing three generations of families instead of two.

The waiting list for the borough is currently at 1,350 and Cllr Woodward said that was only likely to rise in future years.

He said without a Local Plan the borough would leave itself unable to defend against hostile planning applications and this way could ensure control over where development goes.

“We don’t choose to have more housing, but we have this acute housing need,” he added.

“If we don’t do it it will be done to us and that’s the fear.”

Independent Fareham West councillor Nick Gregory said he feared the new homes and the Stubbington Bypass could be the catalyst for building in the strategic gap and make the Newlands development more likely.

He said: “That will be the catalyst for opening Pandora’s box up for any landowner or developer to move into brownfield sites within Fareham borough and it could potentially open everything up.”

Anti-Welborne campaigner Shaun Cunningham, of Shearwater Avenue, in Fareham, said many residents in areas threatened with development had felt a sense of security that Welborne would keep them safe.

The 60-year-old added: “They sold Welborne on the promise that that would be it, there would be no building outside Fareham. Clearly that’s not the case.

“It will open the floodgates to developers - they’ll be dancing around the fields of Newlands”

He said such piecemeal development would not bring the infrastructure needed to support it and mean more congestion, pollution and urban sprawl around Fareham.

Cllr Woodward responding to campaigners’ claims said: “That’s complete and utter rubbish. How could anyone say never?

“I said and have always said that having Welborne gives us protection for our countryside strategic gaps and it does and it has.

“If we didn’t have Welborne we’d be trying to find sites for 8,000 extra houses now and we couldn’t possibly protect the strategic gaps.”