A CONTROVERSIAL blueprint setting out where thousands of homes would be placed in the borough has been given the stamp of approval.

A document setting out where more than 10,500 houses will be built between now and 2029 went before the Test Valley Borough Council on Wednesday night.

As previously reported, the new document sets out that 1,300 homes will be built in Whitenap, and 300 in Hoe Lane.

Planning portfolio holder, Martin Hatley, spoke to councillors at the meeting when presenting the report, describing it as “very good news” that is had been approved by the inspector.

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“He has agreed with our evidence. There’s a common theme running through it. Time and time again he has found that officers’ technical work was sound,” he said.

He described it as the “best possible deal for Test Valley not just for now but also in the future”.

“It will put the council in a strong position to defend itself and its community from speculative planning applications and appeals,” he added.

At the council meeting members of the public applauded after leading opposition councillor Mark Cooper stood up to speak expressing his grief at the adoption of the plan.

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He said: “I grieve because as a retired professional geographer I probably understand landscape and its structure better than most other people in this room.

“I promise you, what you are losing at Whitenap is something, that if you knew those woods and hedgerows as well as I do, you would grieve as well. I grieve because the loss is so careless.”

He added that 1,107 people had “put their pens to paper” against Test Valley’s plans to grow Romsey by 35 per cent.

“It was wrong to grow Romsey by so much, so fast and without the consent of its people – only to have their heartfelt, honestly held opinions over-ruled, discounted and ignored by the planning inspectorate and the council,” he said.

Tory councillor for Romsey (Abbey) Clive Collier said the houses had to go somewhere.

But he added: “I think it’s going to become Whitenap village. People will drive out of that development and they will go to Southampton and other towns.”

Every councillor present at the meeting in Crosfield Hall voted in favour of it bar the seven Liberal Democrat councillors who all abstained from voting.

For more about the local plan see today’s letters page, including an apology from Cllr Mark Cooper.