A massive 500-home development north of Littlemoor is expected to also bring a hotel, a primary school, a care home and extra jobs to the area.

The developers will also have to pay in more than a £1million into schemes to help the community with a cash bonus for a community hall, play areas, open spaces and donations for the health centre and library.

An outline planning application for up to 500 homes on fields to the Dorchester side of Littlemoor Road comes before local planners this week. It allows for 35 per cent of the homes, around 175, to be ‘affordable’.

Dorset Council planning officers are suggesting the massive scheme should be approved as it fits with the revised Local Plan for the area.

Consultations about the site date back to 2015 with estimates that eventually the area could be home to more than 1,000 people and potentially provide full and part time work for around 2,000.

The application comes from Neejam 165 Ltd and Budworth Development Ltd who say that the development would take around six years to build.

If it does happen one of the additional benefits could be an expansion of the existing shopping area, possibly with some shops on the northern side of the road.

In the Local Plan review the report says: “This would help integrate the two areas, the existing service centre should be extended northwards to cover both sides of the road, and will include a mix of uses appropriate to a local centre. This should be designed around a square which provides safe and attractive crossing points at street level, with an emphasis on controlling vehicular movements rather than pedestrian and cycles so that the two communities can integrate successfully.”

Around £40,000 is expected to be donated by the developers for healthcare and almost £310,000 for a community centre, with over £100,000 for resurfacing hockey pitches at Redlands and £128,000 towards Weymouth swimming pool. The local library would also get £65,0000 with £478,000 for a children’s play area and open space. Another £95,750 would go to the Lorton Nature Reserve.

Eight hectares will be set aside on the development for employment use with specific mentions of a car showrooms.

Proposals in the local plan review suggest that “Employment uses should be concentrated towards the western end of the site, adjacent to the main junctions of the relief road.”

The Local Plan also anticipates that the extra growth in the area would mean that a new primary school with one form of entry will be built, capable of being later extended to take two forms of entry.

Contributions to the cost of this, together with payments towards a new community hall, sport and play facilities, libraries, healthcare and the Lorton Valley Nature Park extension will be sought through a legal agreement with developers. And new ‘green’ policies would be put in place – planting additional trees before developments start and to encourage a northern extension of the Lorton Valley Nature Park.

The planning committee, which will meet in Dorchester, is being recommended to agree to outline application in principle, delegating the detailed agreement to the head of planning.

Says the report to councillors: “The location is considered to be sustainable and the proposal is acceptable in its design and general visual impact given that this is an outline application with all matters reserved.

“There are no material considerations which would warrant refusal of this application.”

Comments against the application include worries about the extra traffic, especially between the Bincombe Bumps roundabout and Goulds garden centre; that the A353 relief road will severe the communities either side of it; inadequate sports pitches; the effect on the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; lack of allotments and the effect on wildlife. There is also concern that existing cycle routes will be severed by new roads.

One comment suggests that the maximum use should be made of solar power, biomass or an anaerobic digester to provide power for the development.