VILLAGERS in Odiham are preparing to fight a plan to build a new housing estate and care home.

Developer Bell Cornwell wants to build up to 85 homes and a 60-bed care home at Hatchwood Farm – a three-hectare site between Farnham Road and Colt Hill.

The current plan also includes an entrance to the proposed estate from Farnham Road, and a 4.5-hectare park that will lead down to near the edge of the Basingstoke Canal.

A meeting of Odiham Parish Council heard that a plan has not yet been submitted to Hart District Council.

But Councillor Helen Fleming said Bell Cornwell has written to residents in Linden Avenue, Heronswood and Waverley Close as part of a “pre-application consultation”.

She said: “We are proposing to send out a leaflet to every house in the parish.

“This will alert people to the fact that there’s this consultation, that it is pre-application, and that we are very keen that they put in their views because there’s a distinct possibility that it will not be turned down at appeal as it has before.”

She also proposed to hold a public meeting about the plan, pencilled in for Thursday, April 19 at The Vine Church, in London Road.

The leaflet handed to residents by Bell Cornwell shows the housing ranges from one-bedroom flats to five-bedroom houses.

The leaflet adds: “We will try to take your views into account and make alterations where possible and of course there will be a formal period of consultation during any application process with Hart District Council.”

The deadline for the pre-application consultation is Friday, April 27.

As reported in The Gazette, planning officers at Hart have already decided Bell Cornwell does not need to submit an environment impact assessment, as the development “would not be likely to have a significant effect on the environment”.