PLANS to build 46 new homes at a former holiday park in Highcliffe have sparked concerns from residents.

The detailed scheme for the housing development at the former Cobbs Caravan Park off Gordon Road in Highcliffe has been handed to planners at Christchurch council.

There is already outline permission for 45 properties on the site, which has been bought by Pennyfarthing Homes.

As well as detached, semi-detached houses and flats, the proposal also includes 14 affordable properties, which will be built in the same area and all access-ed by Gordon Road.

The other housing will be accessed by Stanley Road.

In a statement as part of the planning application, the developers, who are represented by agent Ken Parke, say that there is a demand in the area for flats.

“The flats are in demand from people wishing to downsize and those doing so will free up equivalent numbers of family dwellings within the wider suburban area,” it says.

The statement adds the main consideration will be the visual impact but the buildings are of an ‘appropriate’ design with the scale not excessive or out of character.

But residents have raised concerns about the segregated affordable housing and the incr-eased traffic in Stanley Road as a result of the development.

Resident Phil Maier who has the backing of many residents in Gordon Road and Stanley Road, said: “I don’t think the developers have given any thought to Highcliffe as a village or the residents.

“I appreciate it’s got to be built on and I appreciate there has got to be affordable housing but it is the way it’s been done. It’s insulting to the people who will live there.”

He added: “It’s against council policy and these houses should be integrated among the other properties.”

The developers say that while the council encourages affordable housing to be mixed throughout a scheme, planning officers said the previously-approved cluster of 13 units ‘was acceptable and more practical’.