A CONTROVERSIAL housing estate will be built in Hadleigh after winning the backing of Castle Point councillors at a heated meeting.

Argent Developers wants to flatten existing buildings on Solby Wood Farm, off Daws Heath Road, and remove caravans to make way for 46 new homes.

Members of the authority’s planning committee voted the plans through, after an initial deadlock, chairman Simon Hart backing the plans with his casting vote.

Campaigners have long expressed fears about the future of the 8.4 acre site, believing the site to be green belt land, which the council has worked to protect.

However the authority dismissed the claims, and ruled the land is a brown field site, due to it being previously developed.

Colin Riley, leader of the council and councillor for Victoria ward, expressed traffic concerns and the safety of horse riders.

He said: “There has been an extensive amount of negotiations that have gone on with the developer about reducing the number of properties.

“It doesn’t defer from the problem, and the traffic it will bring on Daws Heath Road.

“I am really concerned about this. I am amazed that Essex County Council have nodded this through.

“You wonder if anybody from the council has visited the site.”

Andrew Sheldon, Tory councillor for St Mary’s ward, admitted frustration at the council’s failure to finalise its new Local Plan, a document setting out the borough’s housebuilding over the next 15 years.

He said: “In a world where everybody plays nicely, developers would not submit applications before our local plan is in place, but of course it isn’t an ideal world.

“My concern is that if this site doesn’t go forward, it will put the new local plan in jeopardy.

“We have to consider every single site on its merits,

Kim Fisher, a Castle Point Council planning officer, confirmed that no affordable housing would be provided on site.

The applicant will instead provide a financial contribution for affordable housing off-site.