Families enjoyed traditional outdoor games in Four Marks on Saturday while urging the government to stop plans to build thousands of homes on surrounding countryside.

The Four Marks Fun Day attracted local electoral candidates and the Hampshire County Council leader to Four Marks Recreation Ground.

Children and parents enjoyed rounders, French cricket, bean bag toss, mini golf, skipping and many other games.

Held as part of the Community Planning Alliance’s national day of action, the aim of the event was to show how deeply people cared about protecting and restoring the natural world.

The field bordering the recreation ground was a “big selling point” for Hollie Chapman and her husband Craig when they chose to move to Four Marks.

Hollie said: “We walked around and the field was a sea of yellow - it just looked stunning. Then in the background was rolling field upon rolling field. I thought ‘I could live here’. I was pretty sold at that point.”

But that field faces an application for 115 houses as government housing targets put farmland and other green sites along the A31 under threat of development.

Campaign groups Fight4FourMarks and SMASH - Stand with Medstead Against Speculative Housing - ran marquees providing information about planning applications.

Many residents felt they were not listened to at East Hampshire District Council planning committee meetings.

One said: “It has become clear over time that the decision appears to have been made before the meeting has even started. That is not democracy, it is theatre - a staged pretence of giving the public a voice in what happens to their towns and villages.”

Campaigning groups, including the A31 Alliance, said “multiple approaches” to the planning department were ignored for long periods or received only “cursory acknowledgement”.

Hampshire County Council leader Cllr Nick Adams-King said: “Seeing the situation first-hand, including the significant constraints at the railway arch on Lymington Bottom Road, underlines the real challenges these developments can create.”

County council election candidates attending included Matthew Kellerman, chairman of Reform UK East Hampshire and candidate for Catherington, Conservative Antonia Cox, Liberal Democrat Alexandra Ehrmann and Andrew Oates of Reform UK Alton.

Mr Kellermann said: "Our countryside is under unacceptable pressure from both speculative and already agreed development driven by top-down housing targets that ignore local realities.”

Also attending was Liberal Democrat East Hampshire parliamentary candidate Dominic Martin.

On the East Hampshire Liberal Democrats website, he said: “People across East Hampshire are fed up with a planning system that too often ignores those who live here.”

Alton Rural Liberal Democrat candidate Alex Ehrmann said: “Residents can see what is happening for themselves: piecemeal but significant development, more traffic on rural roads and growing pressure on public services.”

Antonia Cox, the Conservative candidate for Alton Rural, welcomed fellow Conservative Cllr Adams-King to the event to meet campaign group representatives.

Find out about planning applications that affect you by visiting the Public Notice Portal.

She said: “If elected, I will use every tool available to me as a county councillor to stand up for Four Marks, Medstead and all our Alton Rural villages, ensuring their character and infrastructure are properly protected from unsustainable over-development.”