CONTROVERSIAL plans to build almost 90 homes on a greenfield site in the New Forest have been given the green light.

It means scores of properties will spring up on land near the Grade II listed Buckland Manor in Lymington and an Iron Age hill fort known as Buckland Rings.

The application had sparked more than 20 objections, including from Lymington Society conservation watchdogs.

But the district council’s planning and development control committee approved proposals to build 87 houses and bungalows between Alexandra Road and an area of woodland.

Objectors had urged the committee to defer the application, claiming the eastern boundary of the development was too close to existing homes and should be redrawn.

Jill Vallance warned people already living in the area would suffer light pollution and loss of light and loss of privacy.

But Mike Hirsch, representing the applicant, Pennyfarthing Homes Ltd, said the scheme would include a large amount of affordable housing, including starter homes.

He added: “It will be a pleasant place to live. It meets the vision of the council and that of the applicant.”

The starter homes are aimed at first-time buyers between the ages of 23 and 40 who will be able to purchase the properties for no more than 80-per-cent of their market value.

Cllr David Harrison told fellow members of the committee: “This is a well designed scheme.

“I can understand why some of the neighbours are not particularly enamoured with the application.

"Clearly when you’re used to looking out over a green field it’s difficult to adjust to the idea that it’s going to be a housing estate, but there’s a reasonable gap between the development and existing homes.

"There is huge merit in this application in that it includes starter homes.”

A report to councillors said the proposed homes “lacked distinctive character” and claimed the scheme had “little sense of design quality”.

But it also added: “The proposed layout and design would create an acceptable development that would pick up the transition between the built-up area and the countryside.”

“The development is not considered to adversely impact on residential amenity, trees, flooding or ecology.”