CAMPAIGNERS criticised highways chiefs for insisting thousands of new homes planned for Colchester will not cause more congestion – because new residents will use bikes.

An outline planning application is due to be submitted later this year for up to 1,800 homes on 100 hectares off Nayland Road.

Thousands more homes are being built in the area, with the first of 1,500 houses on the former Severalls Hospital site nearing completion.

Residents in Mile End, one of Colchester’s most congested communities, fear the new homes could exacerbate the problem.

However, Essex County Council highways plans suggest because 70 per cent of current residents already live in the town, many new occupiers will effect a “modal shift” by swapping cars for bikes. A series of upgrades have been mooted for the area around North Station and around Cowdray Avenue, but few concrete changes have been put forward for Mile End.

Catherine Clouston, of the Love Myland campaign, said residents feared the new homes could be built without County Hall providing the transport upgrades needed.

She said: “We all sit in the traffic jams.

“They’re saying when they build all these extra houses that it’s not going to be any worse and it’s actually going to be better because everyone is going to get out of their cars and on to bikes. They don’t appear to have a clue what they’re doing.”

Jean Dickenson, of Myland Parish Council, said it had been told in meetings that highways officers hoped 15 per cent of residents moving into north Colchester would largely use bikes and public transport, instead of cars.

However, she said in no other town or city in the country had there been such a successful drive to convince residents to give up their cars.

She said: “They have based that on a whim. There’s no evidence it can be done.

“They are all going to be commuters – many will move here to go on to the A12. They’re messing us about until it’s too late to do anything about it. We asked what assumptions they have used, but we’ve been given no data.”

Derrick Louis, councillor for highways, said: “We will work in partnership with Colchester Council to look into the concerns of residents regarding this planned site.”