AN extra £1,500 has been set aside to fight any planning application to build housing at the bottom of Chase Road in Lindford.

Lindford Parish Council has agreed to ring-fence the sum from its reserves for fighting an application for up to 180 homes on the controversial site which is allocated for houses.

The money will help fund printing costs and distribution of leaflets as well as the organisation of a meeting in the village as soon as an application by developer Charles Church is submitted.

The council has also agreed to allow the Chase Road working party to spend up to £250 of the cash, without having to ask the full council, to get the campaign against the development off the ground once an application is submitted.

This agreement is the latest to be made by the council which has just paid out a substantial sum for a report by independent planning consultant Edward Dawson.

Chairman Ian Skelton-Smith said: "We will have to spend a bit more money to fight against the Chase Road development.

"It is very clear that this is what the residents of Lindford want."

The council agreed to discuss Mr Dawson's report, providing ammunition against the possible development, in a closed session at the end of its monthly meeting.

However, Mr Skelton-Smith, who is on the working party, summarised that the parish council was going to use its contents to make a submission to East Hampshire District Council.

He said: "We have had the report done by an independent consultant and have have put together a document based on his submission.

"We will be asking for is the removal by East Hants District Council of the Chase Road site from the local plan."

The history of the site is long and complicated and has been at the centre of controversy in the village for a number of years.

In 1996 a planning inspector decreed that the settlements of Bordon and Lindford were not separate entities and that the open space between Chase Road and the River Wey would be a suitable place for a development of 100 large houses.

Developer Charles Church then put forward a strong case to develop the site during the public inquiry into East Hampshire District Council's local plan - the development blueprint for the area.

In 1997 EHDC planners and the environment committee deferred to the inspector's decision, to the fury of Lindford residents, and recent planning guidance has pushed the possible number of houses from 100 up to 180.

Since then the village has been on tenterhooks waiting for a planning application to be submitted.

East Hampshire District Council expects a planning application to be submitted for the Chase Road site in the next few months.