VILLAGERS in an “ancient” settlement are calling for an end to mass development in Tendring’s rural areas.

Kirby-le-Soken Village Preservation Society was formed in 1962 when there were just 110 houses in the village. There are now more than 600 homes.

An article in last week’s Gazette about the changing faces of villages in the west of Tendring prompted frustrated villagers in Kirby to call for time on allowing large developments in the district.

Chris Heal, secretary of the society, said: “We constantly submit objections to Tendring Council’s planning committee about over-building within the village boundary, as well as mass development.

“Currently an estate of 200 plus homes is planned for Turpins Farm on a field adjacent to the village for which permission has been granted.

“We complain frequently about the state of our roads to the county council. We have warned of traffic chaos, gridlocking and flooding.”

Villagers claim they have been hit with a series of speculative developments, which were only given the nod because Tendring Council had failed to get a Local Plan in place.

“There is nothing we can do about the Local Plan,” added Mrs Heal.

“After months of research, a committee member produced a Village Plan to support our argument against more houses, but it was deemed invalid due to Government changes to the system.”

She added: “Already a large estate is partly constructed at Kirby Cross and, with the Walton Martello development of houses and supermarkets too, Kirby-le-Soken has become a rat-run with a huge increase in traffic speeding through in each direction as drivers try to avoid congestion along Frinton Road.

“Both local and county authorities show little regard for our concerns about lack of infrastructure, dangers of flooding and speeding.”

A spokesman for Tendring Council said work was progressing well on adopting a new Local Plan.

“An inspector is currently holding an inquiry to examine the strategic part of our new Local Plan, and we are hopeful this will be found sound in the next few months,” he added.

“We can then move onto the final part of our Local Plan, and depending on scheduling by the independent Planning Inspectorate hope to have this adopted in the winter of 2020-21.

“Although under new regulations we have a four-year housing land supply under our new Local Plan we have a different figure in place which gives us a five-year supply.

“Local Plans take time to adopt, and this is important to make sure that they are right – while we understand a desire to rush one through, this would not be the right approach to take.”