RESIDENTS campaigning against the Wessex Fields development have warned a planned link road could be “deadly”.

A presentation about the site was heard by members of the council’s planning board yesterday morning.

The exhibition was not a formal application, but an opportunity for councillors to comment on the scheme prior to its submission.

Campaigners were also given time to make deputations to the board as part of the pre-application hearing.

The Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership proposal would see a new link road built from the A338 to the hospital, with a new junction created at Holdenhurst village.

Part of the Bournemouth International Growth Programme, the scheme is intended to improve access to the Wessex Fields site, which lies between the hospital and the Playgolf Iford golf course.

The remainder of the site is earmarked for development as housing and also for business.

Wendy Sharp, who chairs the Holdenhurst Parish Meeting, said: “We’ll have a number of lanes with cars all trying to weave across.

“It’ll be deadly. I promise you it’ll be deadly.”

Wendy also spoke of residents’ anger at being dismissed by Cllr Mike Greene as a “tiny minority who only wish to look for negatives”.

She told councillors: “We’re not a ‘tiny minority’. We’re your constituents and we have a right to be listened to with respect.”

Conor O’Luby, of campaign group Friends of Riverside, warned of the dangers of air pollution to residents living nearby, as well as the “destruction” of greenbelt land.

Nicholas Pryor of charity Friends of the Elderly said the link road would pass in front of the Retired Nurses National Home, which houses more than 60 people.

Funding for the first stage of the project has been approved. If the initiative is given the green light, work could begin for an on/off sliproad from the southbound carriageway in spring 2019.

However, there is currently no funding for the second stage of the project, a sliproad and a bridge northbound.

Developers say the scheme could “unlock” 2,000 extra jobs in Bournemouth and relieve long traffic delays at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital.