A FORMER Ministry of Defence site has been earmarked for 1,000 homes.

However, campaigners say their community is already at “breaking point”.

Middlewick Ranges is one of 13 Government sites across the country being sold off in a bid raise £225 million and make room for up to 17,000 homes.

Defence bosses had initially mooted the 190 acre site, off Mersea Road, in Colchester, for 2,000 homes.

However, council bosses rejected the figure and have since cut it in half to 1,000 homes.

The site could still be included in the Colchester Council’s draft local plan which is due to be published in June.

Lee Scordis, who represents Old Heath and Hythe on Colchester Council, said: “There is a real danger we are going to be lumbered with 1,000 homes in an area which is already at breaking point.

“The schools are full, the doctor’s surgeries are so stretched and Mersea Road is already in trouble.”

Mr Scordis (Lab) led a traffic census on Mersea Road, Abbots Road and Old Heath Road.

It found 800 vehicles passed on just one lane in Mersea Road in one hour while an average of 500 vehicles used one lane of Abbots Road in one hour.

He added: “It is not a exaggeration to say 1,000 homes would bring with it 2,000 extra cars.

“It is just unrealistic to expect those roads to take that increase in traffic coming from a development of that magnitude.”

If 1,000 homes were to be built on the site, the development would take up about one-third of the total space.

Mr Scordis hopes to have the remaining space secured as a country park in order to protect it from further development.

He added: “This is a site generations of families have used and loved and there is no way we can let it disappear completely.

“Our fear is once homes are built, more will be built on other parts of the Wick so securing the remaining two-thirds as some sort of a country park would at least mean a substantial amount of green space would remain.”

Martin Goss, chair of Colchester Council’s local plan committee, said he understood Mr Scordis’ concerns and said the Ministry of Defence bosses were “in cloud cuckoo land” when they suggested the land could be home to 2,000 homes.

He added: “That suggestion is just inept and incongruous with reality but the reality is we must consider each site which has been put forward so this site will be considered in exactly the same way as the hundreds of others.”

  • Lee Scordis is standing in the Essex County Council election in Abbey division. Other candidates are: Lyn Barton (Lib Dem), Daniel Ellis (Conservative), Mark Goacher (Green), Ron Levy (UKIP).