CONTROVERSIAL plans to build seven houses in Romsey could be given the green light today.

A planning application has been submitted to Test Valley Borough Council to erect the seven homes in Ganger Farm Lane, adding to the 275 homes which were previously given the go ahead.

The application, submitted by Barratt David Wilson Homes Southampton, would offer a mix of two and three bedroom houses, as well as two one bedroom houses.

If approved, the development would also provide 12 new car parking spaces.

A critic of the application, Mary Stubbs, from Braishfield Road, said: "It looks to me as if the developer is squeezing in more units to an already packed site.

"They have agreement for two detached houses and they want to upgrade that to two pairs of semi-detached, for example four units to replace the original two houses plus a further three units?

"If so then this is a sneaky intensification of the site; it is greedy and detrimental to this semi-rural area in terms of character and traffic generation."

Cllr Nick Adams-King, who represents Blackwater on the borough council, said: "At the end of the day, the developers know what the market is telling them a to what kind of houses are needed for the area.

"From what I hear, there are a lot of people who would rather have some smaller and more affordable houses to allow people to step on the property ladder."

Cllr Dorothy Baverstock, who represents Romsey Cupernham on the borough council, said: "The development looks quite spacious as it has sports fields, but it might be a problem depending on where the houses are put."

This comes after civic chiefs approved plans for sports pitches to be built on the site alongside the hundreds of homes.

Sports clubs across Romsey were expected benefit from the application while developers wanted to build the homes on Ganger Farm Lane. 

As previously reported in the Romsey Advertiser, members of Test Valley Borough Council’s southern area planning committee unanimously gave their approval to the application.

Julian Jones, development director at Barratt Homes, said “The planning application relates to a re-plan to the Barratt phase on our Kings Chase development in Romsey.

"We are looking to replace two of our larger Kingston four bedroomed homes with four three-bedroomed Barwick homes to better reflect market demand and provide home buyers with a greater choice.

"Overall there will be just two more homes on the development – moving the number from 275 to 277, although the overall space occupied by the properties is slighter smaller, when taking into account a recent earlier re-plan that replaced a street of five bed homes with the same number of four bed homes.”

The application is due to be decided by the Southern Area Planning Committee on Tuesday, January 7.