PILOTS and residents living close to Old Sarum airfield were at a public consultation on multi-million pound plans to develop the site.

Plans for hundreds of homes, aircraft hangars, a visitor and conference centre, and a new restaurant are due to be submitted to Wiltshire Council for outline planning permission next month.

Around 200 people attended the consultation at the airfield’s Skies Cafe on Friday to talk to the airfield operators, architects, archaeologists and engineers.

Associate consultant at Wessex Archaeology Chris Moore said: “People are interested in the preservation and continued use of the airfield. There are also concerns about traffic. Generally speaking, people want to know whether what is being proposed will change the nature of the airfield.”

Yolanda Long, who lives at the bottom of the runway in Ford said: “Where’s all the traffic going to go? I can’t get out of my road at the moment as it is, and if you are going to build that amount of houses, you’ve got to put shops and schools in place.”

Nigel Greenwood of Merrifield Road, Ford, said: “People come to Ford because of its rural feel but it’s close to town. With all these houses, it is being brought into an urban environment.

“We’re also concerned about our access and the safety of the roads, which are treacherous already at times.”

Fears were also expressed about lanes being used as rat runs by parents dropping children off at the new school being built at the nearby Hampton Park II development.

Dickie Bird from Ford said: “I fly here occasionally and I’m concerned that a lot of people will buy a house and then say we can’t have an airfield here because of the noise.

“Whoever is selling these houses needs to make sure people know they will be living by the side of a very historic airfield.”

Old Sarum Airfield Ltd director Grenville Hodge said the feedback had been “very useful”.

“Some of the feedback has involved adding a shop, which I would be delighted to do, and allow for more footpaths around the parish,” he said.

“We have found that people are concerned because they don’t know what’s going to happen but when we explain what we are doing, unless they’re directly affected, they think it’s good and that it’s the right thing to do.”

About 470 homes is to be split into two sections: 320 houses at the western end of the hangars and 150 houses on the south-eastern boundary of the airfield next to Ford, in front of Merrifield Road and Manor Farm Road.

The former is to have a “marina feel” where residents can sit out on balconies and watch aircraft taking off and landing, while the latter is to have arts and crafts-style housing.

Private aircraft hangars in the shape of Spitfire wings are set to include accommodation for owners who want to fly in and stay for the weekend or longer.

The airfield is just one of three in England that has been in continuous use as a grass flying field since construction in World War I and it is the only one of the three currently in civilian use and open to the public.