Campaigners against plans to build 1,100 houses at Chawton Park Farm near Alton are urging people to attend developer Harrow Estates’ drop-in public consultation at Alton Community Centre on March 11 from 4pm to 8pm.

Describing the site off Chawton Park Road as ‘land south-west of Alton’, Harrow Estates - part of Barratt Redrow - said its estate would include shops, public green space and a primary school, with up to 40 per cent of the properties being affordable housing for rent or sale.

No planning application has yet been submitted but the developer has put in an environmental impact assessment scoping opinion application, meaning it will ask East Hampshire District Council for its opinion on what information needs to be included in order to make an environmental impact assessment.

Harrow Estates claims that nearly 1,700 East Hampshire families are looking for a secure and affordable home. It says the site is a “highly sustainable location” with good connections into Alton, and that the proposal would support improvements to public transport and cycle routes in Chawton Park Road and onwards towards Four Marks.

The company’s planning director Steve Neal said: “The site is a sustainable location for urgently-needed new homes. This is a real opportunity to improve local public transport options, as well as pedestrian and cycle connectivity in the wider area.”

The Say No To Chawton Park Farm group outlined a range of reasons why it felt the scheme should be rejected.

It believed it would be “car dependent”, adding another 1,500 vehicles and 1,800 daily journeys to the strain on the local road system, causing “traffic chaos and gridlock”, and that there were “access pinch points” including a Victorian railway bridge and a right-angled bend.

Campaigners were worried about the impact on the water-bearing chalk aquifer beneath the site, and on sites of importance for nature conservation, ancient woodland and wildlife habitats.

They said the Chawton Park Farmhouse was a grade II listed building, that building houses on the farm would destroy what the Campaign to Protect Rural England had identified as a “valued landscape”, and that the site contained evidence of a Roman road and a medieval deer park.

The group said: “Please attend if you can - and comment.”

Find out about planning applications that affect you by visiting the Public Notice Portal.

The environmental impact assessment scoping opinion application can be viewed on the East Hampshire District Council planning portal under the reference EHDC-25-1383-EIA. The public consultation closes on March 9.