A PETITION has been set up by residents to protect the environment from thousands of new homes.

Colchester’s Local Plan proposes a garden community on the border of Colchester and Tendring to deliver up to 2,500 homes in the next 15 years.

Greenstead Independents set up the petition in a bid to protect individual identities of neighbourhoods.

The petition, which has received 409 signatures in five days, includes calling for the green buffer between Greenstead, Longridge and the new development to be equal to the buffers between Wivenhoe and Elmstead Market, with no residential development west of Slough Road.

Residents have also called for the green buffer from Clingoe Hill to Bromley Road to protect the current Site of Importance for Nature Conservation.

They also stressed the importance of affordable housing.

Christopher Lee, who started Greenstead Independents, said: “Residents in east Colchester desperately need to come together to make a stand for what’s right because no-one else is going to.

“The area south of the A133 is where the university would expand. What it says in the Local Plan is that in this area they might build student accommodation.

“In other words, instead of no residential development they’re possibly going to build high-rise student flats.

“We’re not against the development. There’s many boxes that need to be checked to make this a solution to Colchester’s problems and not just another one added to the list.

“One of these is that development is moved away Greenstead and north actually in to Tendring.

"The development was joint effort between the councils of Colchester, Braintree in Tendring with three garden villages being built across them.

“Why does Colchester have to accept one and a half developments so that Tendring only needs to have a half?”

  • The change.org petition can be seen by clicking here.