A 500-HOME development on a Greenfield site in Salisbury looks set to go ahead after a last ditch attempt to pursue a judicial review failed.

Residents and councillors had pinned their hopes on the review after communities secretary Eric Pickles overturned a planning inspector’s decision that Barratt Homes should not be allowed to go ahead with Hampton Park II.

Ron Champion, chairman of Laverstock and Ford Parish Council, said the parish was “bitterly disappointed” and “incredulous”

at the decision of Wiltshire Council not to pursue the review.

He said: “The residents of this parish feel very let down by Wiltshire Council, where a decision has been made out of political and financial expediency and not from concerns for local opinion.

“Our residents are becoming cynical with Wiltshire Council and beginning to believe their views count for very little.”

The land was originally earmarked for a golf course in the 1990s, when people moved in to homes at Hampton Park, and they say this agreement should not be broken.

Protestors say Hampton Park II will destroy the gap between Salisbury city and the rural settlement of Ford, and if homes are built, it should not be anywhere near as many as has been agreed.

In the decision letter issued by Mr Pickles last year, he said the need for affordable housing outweighs other considerations and he is satisfied the gap separating Ford from Salisbury would be maintained.

Councillor Bill Moss, who represents the Bishopdown ward on Wiltshire Council, said: “This decision is terrible.

“The developers promised originally that this would be a golf course, and they have broken that promise.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Council said: “We sought independent legal advice and were advised not to pursue a judicial review.”

Cllr Moss said he will be meeting with Salisbury MP John Glen next week.

After Mr Pickles overturned the decision, Mr Glen wrote to him to say his constituents had been left “very frustrated by the gap between the promises of localism and what they now perceive as a hollow reality”.

Mr Glen was made Mr Pickles’ parliamentary private secretary in the recent government reshuffle.