FURIOUS councillors in Thornbury have hit out at South Gloucestershire’s refusal to protect green spaces in the town from potential development.

A number of open spaces in the town, including greens near Streamleaze and Osprey Park, and Down Road in Alveston, have been removed from a list of protected sites by South Gloucestershire Council.

Thornbury councillors fear this could pave the way for more housing developments in a town already facing 1,500 new homes.

They submitted a list of all the places in the town that they believed required formal protection from development in SGC’s Policies, Sites and Places (PSP) plan.

But as the landowner, the county council decided to remove the sites from the plan, claiming that the spaces were subject to the same assessment criteria as all the rest.

Thornbury town councillors have said they now fear for the future of the open spaces.

Cllr Clare Fardell said: “The green spaces were designed to give the population moving into the town an open space to enjoy the outdoors.

“These areas, Streamleaze in particular, are great places for children to play. There are no cars, it is large enough to accommodate big groups and it is well overlooked so it is safe.

“Many of the houses in those areas have small gardens, so having a place like that to kick a ball around is invaluable.”

A formal public consultation will now take place, with over 230 green spaces across the county earmarked for protection.

Several sites in Thornbury, including the Mundy Playing Fields and Oakleaze Road field, are owned by the town council and have been included on the protected list.

A SGC spokesman said: “The Policies, Sites and Places Plan must be subject to formal public consultation before being submitted to the government for final independent assessment.

“As part of the process of preparing the plan, the council has assessed all nominations for Local Green Space designation in line with the same criteria, including the sites where the council is the owner of the space in question. The council’s assessment will be subject to review by the government’s independent assessment process.”

Cllr Maggie Tyrrell said SGC stating that there are no immediate plans to develop the open spaces is “of no comfort”.

“They said to us that they wanted the option for it to be developed on in the future, whether in part or the whole thing.

“But the fact they have no immediate plans to develop is of no comfort.”