BATTLE lines pitching Basingstoke’s eastside against its westside are emerging after early skirmishes over the location of future house building in the borough.

A technical document drawn-up by council officers to identify potential building sites capable of taking the 18,900 homes the Government has asked the borough to build by 2026 has become a political football.

Borough politicians believed they and their residents had not had enough input into the construction of a draft version of the document last year, which it has since emerged can be used by developers fighting to obtain planning permission on sites the councillors deem totally unsuitable for homes.

In September, councillors called for a review, just as a major flare-up was sparked by the removal of Manydown, an area of land on Basingstoke’s western fringe capable of taking 8,000 new homes.

Old Basing borough councillor Onnalee Cubitt said the result was every other site identified in the document, called the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), will have to be built on to meet the Government’s target of 945 homes per year from 2006 to 2026 – including thousands in her ward.

Cllr Cubitt, a Conservative, told members of the planning and infrastructure committee: “Dramatic changes have taken place that the public have not been consulted on.

“Every other site in the amended table will have to be developed if the number of houses continues to be 945 per annum.”

Old Basing resident and former ward councillor Alan Read, speaking on behalf of environmental pressure group Country Watch, also addressed the meeting. He said Country Watch had “severe misgivings” about the way the SHLAA was being produced.

Mr Read said great care was taken in the past to divorce the land owner from the planning department and no sound planning reasons had been given for removing or reducing major greenfield sites to the west of Basingstoke.

“We believe it to be a case of the land owner interfering with the planning process,” he said, referring to the fact that Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Hampshire County Council are essentially the land owners of Manydown.

The councils’ bought a £10million 999-year lease on 2,000 acres from the Manydown Company in 1996, but the borough stopped marketing the site for development after the Conservatives came to power in 2006 and the county followed suit this year.

Many influential members of the borough’s ruling Conservative group represent wards bordering on Manydown, including council leader Cllr Andrew Finney, Cabinet member for planning and infrastructure Cllr Rob Golding, association vice-chairman Cllr Robert Donnell and planning and infrastructure committee chairman Cllr Stephen Reid.

Labour councillors, who are worried the SHLAA will lead to play areas and car parks in Basingstoke town being built on, also questioned whether there was a sufficient divide between the borough’s planning and property departments.

Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, pushed for the SHLAA to be redrawn to meet regional demands – a move that would effectively reduce house-building pressure from Whitchurch and Overton.

After four hours of debate, the committee decided a SHLAA was necessary but felt it needed more information before deciding how to address the “democratic deficit” in the document.

Nicky Linihan, head of planning and transport, said she would calculate whether Cllr Cubitt’s assessment was correct, and Cllr Golding pledged to introduce more sites for development if there was not enough to allow choice.

Afterwards, Cllr Golding told The Gazette that the Cabinet had not removed Manydown from the SHLAA, but Hampshire’s decision not to market the site had pushed its availability for house building back beyond 2026.