THE MAJORITY of residents that viewed plans for a potential development of 100 homes in Dursley have rejected the proposal.

Developers Hunter Page Planning are seeking to build a range of two-bedroom to four-bedroom homes at the site off of Shakespeare Road in Woodmancote, right next to Dursley Primary Academy.

A six-hour public consultation was held by the developers on Friday to gather opinions and concerns from nearby homeowners and businesses before they submit an outlying planning application for the green field site.

Within two hours of the consultation, which had a number of information boards and staff on hand to answer people’s questions, 60 people had visited.

One such visitor was 43-year-old John Owen from Shakespeare Road, which lies adjacent to the site and is worried about the already narrow roads seeing a build up in traffic.

“I am very concerned about how much traffic will be coming down into the estate, I do not like the idea of where the access road is,” said the engineer.

“I think if you look at the outlying plan of Dursley, they should be building near the Cam side, towards the A38 and M5.

“All the residents have been feeling the same. It’s the access road we’re worried about.”

Bryan Hoggarth and his wife Susan said they would probably move from their home in nearby Wordsworth after 26 years because of the development.

“We moved there because it is close to open spaces. We won’t be able to see anything if those houses are built,” he said.

“It’s in the wrong place and it’s too close to the Area of Oustanding Naturual Beauty.”

Malcolm Hawkins, 73, a Whiteway Hill resident for 30 years was not pleased with the proposed access road either and said already-existing problems with sewage would escalate.

“Personally I think the access road isn’t suitable for 100 houses when you think there could be 150 cars going through that route,” he said.

“They need to do a risk assessment of the existing sewage system to check if it can take the additional sewage from the proposed extra houses

“We have had enough problems with sewage flooding already.”

Half of the site is being earmarked for green space, with assurances that this will be legally protected from further construction.

There is also a portion of land to the north east of the planned area, next to Highfields, which may be used for further housing in the future.

About 50 per cent of the development will be red brick houses and some will have Cotswold stone features.

Bat and bird boxes are expected to be installed and tree belts and hedgerows retained.

Development manager Simon Cocks admitted that a lot of visitors had been against the proposal.

When asked whether the company would attempt to take on the residents’ views and concerns, he said: “Absolutely, that’s the point of today, to see whether there are problems and see what we can do to solve them.

“Most people rejected the principle of it,” he added.

“What we’re trying to get out of the day is what else we can do and what problems can solve.”

Hunter Page Planning hope to submit an outline planning application within six weeks.