GREEN spaces around a Swindon country park have been included in a council list of possible development sites sparking fury.

Residents and councillors want plots either side of Queen’s Drive near the Coate roundabout – including a spot by Oldlands Walk – removed from Swindon Borough Council’s strategic housing land availability assessment document.

The council is currently consulting on the list of sites, as it begins to develop a new local plan.

More than 400 areas have been identified by the borough council as having potential to be developed for homes or business units. Councillors have stressed that just because a site is flagged in the document, it does not mean it will be built on.

But shocked residents and councillors have called for the Coate roundabout sites to be struck from the list sooner rather than later.

The parcels of land north of the roundabout either side of Queens Drive are together around two hectares in size.

Before any planning permission could be given for them, the council document says planning officers would need to make sure the loss of the green space did not negatively hit the wider area.

Chris Watts, Park South ward councillor and chairman of South Swindon Parish Council, said: “The idea of using greenfield sites, particularly around Coate Water – I’m just appalled by it. It’s the loss of amenity space. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

“I would really like the borough council to have a rethink and actually protect these sites.”

Sylvia Stollery, 82, who has lived in the area for almost 60 years, said: “I feel disgusted.

"That’s a little corridor for wildlife. It’s a green space. Aren’t they doing enough building around Swindon? I feel it’s just to make the council money. If they build there, it’s just going to be awful.”

Claire Brice has lived in Lawn for eight years and has delivered around 100 letters to her neighbours asking them to respond to the consultation.

She said: “It’s a green space. We don’t want anyone building houses on it. It’s a wildlife corridor that links Coate Water with the Lawns.

Coun Gary Sumner, cabinet member for planning, said. “The site at the Coate end of Marlborough Road has been included among the sites because it is one that offers no special landscape or recreation features, other than to act as a gap between homes on Marlborough Road and Queens Drive.”

“It has also often been used by travellers in the past.

"The site by Oldlands Walk is another site which may support small-scale development to supply the borough with much needed housing.”