Campaigners have hit out saying villagers’ concerns about new housing are being ignored.

The Tey Road Action Group has raised concerns about the amount of homes which are set to be built in Earls Colne in the coming years.

A variety of large scale planning applications have been approved by Braintree Council, with the latest seeing Gladman Developments allowed to build 90 homes off Station Road.

Members of the Tey Road Action Group are fighting another application to build 23 homes off Tey Road.

They fear that despite growing opposition to the proposals, planning permission will be granted and mean more countryside will be lost to development.

Stuart Sheehy said: “The pressure on local government to build housing right now is immense.

“Unless there is an obvious, outright reason to say no to an application it seems a lot of them get approved.

“There is a lot of opposition and frustration in the village at what is happening. It seems undemocratic at times and developers almost have an open channel.

“We seem to be reaching a point where there is unanimous opposition to any development. but the council seems to be ignoring the voices of those people who are probably more aware of the issues which affect the village.”

Mr Sheehy says the opposition to development is based on concerns about Earls Colne’s infrastructure.

He believes planning applications would receive approval from residents if they included improvements to the roads, Earls Colne Primary School and The Pump House doctors’ surgery.

He added: “Each of these applications is being looked at on its individual merits, rather than the combined total and impact.

“What concerns a lot of people in Earls Colne is no-one is doing the maths with all these new homes.

“We’ve got something like 300 going to be built.There is going to be all of these extra cars, extra places needed at the school and doctors’ surgery. The surgery is a joke already, you have to wait six weeks for an appointment.”

A Braintree Council spokesman said: “It’s important to know that each application has to be considered on its merits and any comments received are taken into account in regards to the decision of applications.”