A DEVELOPER is preparing to submit a planning application for 800 new homes on fields to the west of Swindon.

Taylor Wimpey wants to create the new housing estate at Ridgeway Farm, north of the Sparcells and Peatmoor areas.

It comes after 3,000 new homes were earmarked for west Swindon in the South West Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) in 2008.

Leaflets have been sent out to residents by Taylor Wimpey and a public exhibition is being held on Wednesday.

The company says it will be a mixture of affordable homes for rent and open market homes to buy and plans to set aside land for a primary school and public open space on the 91 acre site. It says the housing estate was planned in the 1980s when the scheme around Peatmoor Local Centre was drawn up.

One of the main proposals is to closure Purton Road to traffic running west to east between the site and Peatmoor and turn it into a cycleway and footpath linking in with the existing Old Purton Road cycleway and footpath. Swindon Drive would be extended north into the site from Peatmoor Local Centre 400m away, to a new spine road through the development.

The company says this would get rid of the hazardous junction at the Forresters pub and a new junction into the site would be created further north.

The spine road would connect to the Sparcells roundabout and a separate access road would serve the site north of the railway.

But locals are objecting to the plans saying they will put pressure on west Swindon’s ammenities while being built in Wiltshire, meaning Wiltshire Council will receive their council tax and rates.

Coun Nick Martin said: “It’s not that Swindon is against expansion but west Swindon is suffering from being the sink for the north Swindon developments, which flush traffic through on its way to the Great Western Way and the motorway and put pressure on our drainage system.”

Wiltshire Council asked Taylor Wimpey to set aside land for a primary school to serve pupils from both the Ridgeway Farm development and the Moredon bridge site, which was recently approved on appeal.

The exhibition will take place between 4-7pm on Wednesday at Roughmoor Social Hall, Swinley Drive, Peatmoor. Anyone wanting to comment on the plans can email dpds.swindon@dpds.co.uk or write to the Ridgeway Farm Project, c/o DPDS Consulting Group, Old Bank House, 5 Devizes Road, Old Town, Swindon, SN1 4BJ, or call 01793 610222.