THE people of Cam have said a resounding no to the possibility of a massive expansion of the village.

A petition signed by over 600 Cam residents was handed to Stroud District Council by ward councillor Paul Denney (Labour), which opposes an option to earmark land in Cam for 2,000 new homes in a bid to meet house building targets.

It was part of a discussion at the full council meeting last Thursday in which councillors agreed a house-building target of 9,350 new homes between 2006 and 2026.

Various options have been put forward for where the houses could go, one of which is to put 2,000 in Cam.

"We have spoken to a lot of people in the town door to door and, before we had even fully explained what the petition was about, the same questions would be asked of us, where are all the people going to work and where are their kids going to go to school," said Cllr Denney.

"Normally with a petition it would be against a decision already taken, but it was decided that this was too important to wait for the council’s decision in November.

"We are acting now so that the council is aware just how strongly local people feel about this issue. We wanted to strike before the iron got hot, so to speak.

"We hope very much that now the council will think again before dumping such a huge development on us."

The petition makes clear that Cam would support a proposal for around 200 new homes in the parish and Cllr Denney added that the petition was not about being NIMBYs.

"The environmental impact of 2,000 new homes is just too much for Cam to bear, we have very few jobs, Rednock School is full to bursting with no room for expansion and the local road system is already in a pitiful state before we add many thousand more car journeys a day to it.

"It’s difficult to see how this is going to work on any level and we urge the council to adopt the strategy of spreading development across the district so that no one place has to take more than its fair share."

Cllr Barbara Tait, cabinet member for planning and environment for Stroud District Council, said: "No decisions have been made on the location of future development sites in our Local Plan.

"There is no denying that we have to build a substantial number of new homes in our district and there will be strong opinions for and against the locations and sizes of any proposed development sites.

"It is the nature of the planning, but we have and will continue to consult widely on our proposals."