"Enough is enough".

That was the message as more than a hundred people descended on Basingstoke's council offices last night to protest against the amount of housing planned for the borough.

They held placards and banners protesting against the amount of housing planned for Basingstoke and Deane, moments before councillors debated the future housing strategy.

Members of the economic, planning and housing committee were assessing the council's proposed spatial strategy, which outlines the principle for development in and around Basingstoke that, if adopted, will be part of the next local plan.

As part of that debate, council officers have shortlisted where potential housing could go, a subject that saw almost 30 members of the public speak in a passionate meeting.

Among those at the protest was Dee Haas, an Ellisfield resident and chair of CPRE Hampshire - The Countryside Charity.

She told The Gazette: "We think that there are too many pressures on all boroughs to provide too many houses. We think they’ve got the maths wrong, the algorithm which is based on 2014 figures is just trying to build too many houses.

"We may need some growth, and we particularly need houses for younger people.

"All of these developments are not going to be producing housing for younger people that they can afford. They are going to be producing car dependent urban sprawl.

"Any additional housing is going to put the infrastructure under strain, and the problem is we have got raw sewage going into the rivers.

"We have got traffic building up, any of these out of town situations are going to create massive traffic jams and blockages. We need to be able to get a doctors appointment and send our kids to school.

She called for the future of the town centre be re-thought post-pandemic.

Meanwhile, Marcus Rule, chair of the campaign group Stand Up for the North Hampshire Downs (STaNHD), added: "The logical place to start [for development] is on brownfield sites.

"Things have changed and people aren’t going to offices so much, they’re not going to the town centre so much.

"We think we should be building more internally, in town. They want to build four-bedroom houses in the countryside that doesn’t help anyone."

Council leader Ken Rhatigan, who was speaking to some of the protesters, told The Gazette: "I think it’s difficult for people to understand they are at the start of something, but it is really important they do engage and feel part of that process.

"The things that make North Hampshire special need to be protected. We have a difficult balance to make.

"My view is that we do need to understand where we can develop with the minimum of fuss and the minimum environmental impact. But we need to know where people want to be in terms of their jobs, their education, these are important issues and we need to listen to people.

"If we don’t get a local plan, we will have development by appeal, and that won’t be good for anybody."