OBJECTORS to outline plans to build 1,800 homes at Dunsfold Park forced Waverley planners to run the gauntlet last night in an 11th-hour bid to get the scheme thrown out.

Following a heated four-hour debate, members of Waverley’s joint planning committee voted by 10 to eight with no abstentions to support their officers’ recommendation to approve the scheme.

The plan by Trinity College, Britain’s biggest landowner, for the largest residential development in the borough for 100 years triggered more than 5,000 objections and is opposed by 14 parish councils.

But getting consent is crucial to Waverley’s draft Local Plan, due to be submitted tomorrow for public examination, which allocates 2,600 homes for the airfield to meet its increased housing target of 10,000 by 2032 and avoid building on greenfield sites.

Campaigners, who have urged Communities Secretary Savid Javid to call the application in if approved, are now waiting to hear if it will be the government rather than Waverley that makes the final decision.

Full story to follow in next week’s Herald...