PLANS for a major new housing estate in Harnham have been met with criticism by residents who say the “infrastructure can’t stand it”.

Wiltshire Council revealed a draft plan for 640 new homes on Netherhampton Road at a public exhibition in the Guildhall yesterday.

The proposal is for an area of 156 acres between In-Excess and the Cattle Market and would include a primary school for 420 pupils.

And if the proposals are not overturned during the public consultation period, another 100 homes will be built on the opposite side of Netherhampton Road.

A Netherhampton Road resident who attended the consultation said the “main impact” of the development would be the traffic, adding: “The infrastructure can’t stand it.”

Another, from Montague Road, said the plans were “horrible from a traffic point of view”.

She said: “Living here you don’t want to anything built on that space ideally, but I appreciate we need to have more houses.

“I’m also worrying about the character of Salisbury, and how the city itself is going to cope with an increase of residents with what we’ve got already – and how is the hospital going to cope with that?”

The site on Netherhampton Road was put forward for a smaller development of about 400 homes in 2009, but was included only as a reserve site on the council’s Core Strategy.

But now the council says it needs to use the land because “complex” plans to redevelop Churchfields industrial estate into 1,100 new homes by 2026 are “taking longer than anticipated”.

The Montague Road resident said it would be “far more appropriate” to move the Churchfields estate out to Netherhampton Road and build the new housing development there.

She said: ““It’s in town, you’re near the railway station, you’ve got buses, you can walk.

“There’s not actually a big primary school in the centre of Salisbury and there is one just down the road from us now.”

When asked if Netherhampton Road would be a suitable place for an industrial estate she said: ““It wouldn’t be ideal but it would be better because, yes, you’d have an increase of traffic but nowhere near as much as you would if you’ve got 600 houses and a primary school.”

Harnham already suffers from heavy traffic congestion and the council said "comprehensive" road improvements would be needed to cope with the proposed new homes, of which there are 840 in total.

Another 100 homes are planned at the Rowbarrow Estate in the east of Harnham.

A woman who lives on the estate said her “main worry” was New Bridge Road, which she described as a “nightmare” and said was at “full capacity”.

She said the proposals are “over and above the need at the current time”.

“It seems like we’ve got a lot of new houses going up at the moment, I don’t know where all the new residents are going to come from and I don’t know where all these folk are going to be working,” she said.

“People who love Salisbury and chose to move here because of its beauty I feel will move away because of all this development and the traffic problems. I just feel it’s not sustainable at the current time unless there are traffic answers, and I don’t see there are.”

The plans come under the council’s Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan, which aims to ensure the council hits government housing targets, and Wiltshire’s Core Strategy which set out a need for more than 6,000 new homes in Salisbury and Wilton between 2006 and 2026.

Hilltop Way near Old Sarum is also planned to receive ten new homes.

The draft plan will be available for comment on the council’s website from 14 July for 10 weeks.