"TO INCULDE Church Road as a site for major development in the local plan is fundamentally undemocratic. "

That's the response of the chairman of Laverstock and Ford Parish Council to Wiltshire Council's Local Plan. 

The local plan includes a new development of 50 houses on Church Road, which councillor Nick Baker is calling on Wiltshire Council to remove before the document goes out to public consultation. 

The chairman of the Milford Area Preservation Group, David Lovibond previously told the Journal that the "location is wholly inappropriate".

Read more: Wiltshire Council Cabinet approves local plan for more than 1k homes

The proposals contradict the Laverstock and Ford Neighbourhood Plan, which was approved in a referendum last year. 

Cllr Baker said: "We do need to have a grown up conversation about how we provide the homes our community needs.

"However, when the Laverstock and Ford Neighbourhood Plan was approved in a referendum last year we had that conversation- with consultation across the community and a landscape sensitivity assessment carried out by independent professionals.

"To include Church Road as a site for major development in the local plan is fundamentally undemocratic and I am calling on Wiltshire Council to remove this before the document goes out to public consultation."

Cllr Baker says that if the local plan is approved in the current form it will result in "the loss forever of the village of Laverstock's much-loved connection to the local landscape and it will also undermine public confidence in local democracy".

He added: "The community have spoken on this issue just a year ago and now Wiltshire Council is dropping this site into the final draft of the local plan having not consulted about it in the emerging local plan they issued two years ago, or provided a landscape sensitivity assessment.

"Removing this policy would not prevent the site being considered for small scale infill development (in fact the plan expressly allows for this) but does prevent it being singled out for a large-scale strategic allocation which is unwanted, inappropriate and not needed to meet local housing needs."

The Local Plan has faced widespread opposition from residents across the area. 

The owner of Britford Farm Shop is worried his village's identity will be "severely compromised" if plans to build houses go ahead, and Harnham residents have also slammed proposals for around 265 dwellings at land south of Harnham and 45 at land west of Coombe Road.