"WE gave up and moved out of Thornbury" – those were the words of one former resident of 47 years as the town faces more plans for hundreds of new homes.

Bovis Homes has proposed a 400-home development for Thornbury which comes with the town already facing 1,500 new houses.

It would be on land next to the under-construction Thornbury Fields development in Gloucester Road.

There are already 1,500 new homes in the plans with the Cleve Park and Land West of Gloucester Road developments awaiting a final decision, as well as the controversial proposals for a 3,000-home garden village on the borders of the town in Buckover.

This led one now ex-resident, Hils Fensome, to tell the Gazette: “We gave up and moved out of Thornbury just before Christmas. They’ve already ruined the town with too much new development with no new services to cope with the influx of people and their cars.

"It had been my home for 47 years, and the place we raised our family.

"The councillors that are allowing Thornbury to be turned into a new Bradley Stoke should hang their heads in shame.”

Action group Thornbury Residents Against Poorly Planned Development (TRAPP’D) wants "South Gloucestershire Council to start protecting Thornbury from attack".

Member Roger Hall said: These developments will kill Thornbury eventually and something needs to be done.

“The council needs to provide an infrastructure plan for Thornbury – what they will do to improve our town ahead of thousands of new people moving into the area and, most importantly, who will be paying for it.

“We are also asking Thornbury and South Gloucestershire residents to put pen to paper and write to SGC."

Bovis will present its plans at a meeting of Thornbury Town Council's development committee on Tuesday.

Committee chairman Cllr Maggie Tyrrell said: “The letter they have sent to the town council really is presenting it as another wonderful opportunity for Thornbury – it is of course the exact opposite.

“The development itself is so far from the town centre, pushing our developed boundary well past where it should be.

“It is totally unrealistic for the town to absorb more houses, there is nowhere for it to go in terms of facilities."

A Bovis Homes spokesman said: “This site to the north of Morton Way has been promoted through the local development plan process as suitable for the provision of up to 400 new homes.

“We have held pre-application discussions with officers at South Gloucestershire Council and technical surveys of the site are taking place.

The developer will hold a public consultation event next month so the public can give feedback on the proposals.

A SGC spokesman said: “We are currently working alongside the other West of England authorities to prepare the Joint Spatial Plan (JSP), which will cover all four authority areas and provide a new strategic planning context for South Gloucestershire until 2036.

“Officers decided it was not appropriate to handle a pre-application request for this proposal because of its conflict with the emerging proposals of the JSP in relation to Thornbury. Instead we advised the developer that this should be dealt with through representations made to the West of England Joint Spatial Plan and South Gloucestershire new Local Plan.”