PLANS have been submitted to build 500 homes on land in Weymouth.

Landowners Betterment Properties have applied for outline planning permission for the second phase of development on Curtis Fields.

Campaigners are gearing up for another battle over the area of green space.

However, the building of more homes in the borough has been welcomed by Councillor Kevin Brookes (see below).

Planning permission has already been granted for the first phase of the development off Chickerell Road, which includes houses, flats and offices, following a planning inquiry.

Now landowners are preparing for the second phase, but members of the Society for the Protection of Markham and Little Francis have said they are prepared to fight the application.

The group lost a battle at the Supreme Court in January after fighting for decades to get part of the land registered as a Town Green.

Chairman of the group Gill Taylor urged residents to put in objections on the borough council website if they do not want to see the application go through.

She said: “I’m very saddened that Betterment have put in this application. While I appreciate that the land is no longer a Town Green, it remains an important area which residents use for recreation.

“This land is outside of the development boundary in the existing Local Plan and the emerging Local Development Plans of the council.

“Time and time again the community have said that they do not want building on this land.

“The council through the Local Plan have also said, and are continuing to say, that they do not want building on this land.”

The new proposal is for the remainder of the area at Curtis Fields. Developers say the site will bring benefits to the town ranging from affordable housing and the creation of up to 120 jobs to a New Homes Bonus.

A report accompanying the planning application states that the 500 houses would be built in three phases, and 35 per cent of the buildings would be affordable housing. Access would be primarily from an extension to the access from Chickerell Road. A second access point is proposed from Lanehouse Rocks Road.

An area of land has been reserved in the plans for the extension of St Augustine’s School and developers have also promised to make ‘financial contributions’ towards the improvement of facilities at the Marsh recreation ground and highways improvements in the area.

Residents are invited to submit their comments on the application until October 23 at dorsetforyou.com before the borough council considers the proposal.

No one from Betterment Properties was available for comment.

‘The country needs more housing’

‘THE UK needs more houses in general and that’s no different for Weymouth and Portland.’ That’s the view of housing spokesman for Weymouth and Portland Borough Council Kevin Brookes who said he could not comment on specific planning applications, but said that in general the UK as a whole, including Weymouth and Portland, needed more housing.

He said that the local authority had not met its housing targets set out in the previous Local Plan in the mid 2000s, due to the recession and a combination of factors including firms not having the capital to invest in more housing, lack of lending and there not being a market to fill the houses.

He said: “The country needs housing of all sorts, all styles and all tastes and we in Weymouth and Portland are no different to that.”