A MAJOR housing developer has admitted to providing misleading information on proposals for the massive former Syngenta site in Fernhurst, at a public meeting held in the village last week.

Mark Lees, who heads the design team for Comer Homes, found himself in the dock, when almost 100 people packed into the pagoda building and took issue with him over the London-based developer's highly controversial plans to build a hotel, care home and almost 400 homes on the site.

The developer had called the question-and-answer session following a public exhibition showing two options for the huge site: one including a 260-bed hotel and 90-bed care home, and another for a housing-only scheme.

While admitting that Comer Homes' documentation to Chichester District Council (CDC), "is slightly misleading" Mr Lees, who believes both a hotel and a care home are needed in the village and would be appropriate on the site, declared: "Our job as developers is not to canvass opinion – it is to work with the government, and I believe this is the right way to go.

He warned that if forced to do so, Comer Homes would reluctantly go to through a government planning appeal to prove the point.

He declared: "This development will happen ... it is a brownfield site with extant planning permission." He said that Chichester District Council, "wants me to put a big rider on the scheme. It wants it to be used for employment".

Mr Lees claimed that the site had been advertised Europe-wide and there were no takers.

"If we could find an international company to come here, we could let it out, but this location is terrible for a large company," said Mr Lees.

He added that a housing scheme at Highfield House had been "broadly accepted" by the council, subject to detail.

He also claimed that following a meeting on the same day as the question-and-answer session, the housing department had agreed that a possible alternative affordable-housing scheme elsewhere in the district could be provided through a commuted sum of money, paid for by Comer Homes out of its planning gain from the site.

Last week, commenting on the current proposals, the deputy chief executive of CDC, told The Herald that it was "erroneous to describe one of the schemes as being what CDC officers want to see on the site, or in any way supported by CDC at officer level at this stage."

Most Fernhurst residents at the meeting were not convinced by the argument that Fernhurst needs hundreds of new homes, let alone a hotel.

Local Chichester district councillor, Heather Caird, who is also a member of the district council planning committee, assured the audience that the development plans for the site "were not a done deal".

"No decision has been made or recommendation of what is acceptable at this point. We haven't got all the information in front of us, everybody has a view and that will be taken into consideration," said Ms Caird.

She said that any planning application would also be considered by the 12-strong CDC development control committee.

She believed if the site, which used to employ up to 700 people, could not be marketed for employment, it could revert to green fields.

Referring to plans to include nearly 400 houses in the proposed alternative schemes, Ms Caird said: "We in Fernhurst will be required to produce only 70 homes over the next five years. We are not being asked to produce a huge number of houses, and 385 apartments are not what the government is asking for."

The chairman of Fernhurst Parish Council, Carla Barnes, questioned the developers over environmental issues relating to the proposals. She also accused the developers of jumping the gun after a large display advertisement appeared in The Haslemere Herald and another local newspaper last week, showing an image of the reconstructed main office building.

It offered "two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments and four- and five- bedroom houses set in 55 acres of outstanding natural beauty, with health club and conference centre", under the headline: "Coming Soon to Fernhurst Park, Haslemere, Surrey.

This was described as "cheeky and presumptuous".

Mr Lees denied all knowledge of the advertisements.

The chairman of Fernhurst Parish Council, Iain Brown, also spoke out against the development of a hotel on the site and took issue over the lack of publicity for the exhibition and public meeting, as well as the questionnaires visitors to the exhibition were asked to complete.

"We had no idea this exhibition was taking place and nor did CDC," said Mr Browne, who also noted that the developers "had agreed that some of its statements were accepted as being misleading".

"Misleading they certainly are and the questionnaires are not worth the paper they are printed on," he claimed

"For the most part, Fernhurst is a small, rural community; it is accepted that we have some integral development of houses, but I do not accept 500-600 on the outskirts of the village."

Mr Brown warned: "It would totally change the community of Fernhurst and I am not in favour of it."

He also challenged the developers on the advertisement for the homes, for which there is, as yet, no formal planning application.

He said: "I think it is somewhat presumptuous to put an advertisement in papers, selling these flats."

Questions from the audience came thick and fast at the three-hour question-and- answer session, with residents pretty much opposed to the current proposals on offer.

Concerns were expressed about the height and visibility of the reconstructed Highfield House, an inability of the infrastructure of the village to cope with a sudden influx of an extra 50 per cent of its present population, sewerage and water problems, schools and health facilities among them.

After the meeting, Mr Brown said he was "very glad that the developers decided to come clean".

"A lot of information it had up at the exhibition was misleading – truly it was.

"The district council had not given the approval that was being suggested by the exhibition, and questionnaires gave the impression that it is a done deal, which is from the truth.

Mr Brown said he "regretted" remarks made by Mr Lees at the end of the meeting that "whatever we wanted, we weren't going to get, no matter what the district council said".

"I am actually reasonably in favour of a care home, and the idea of putting that into the existing building, appeals to me quite a lot, with a little bit of housing on the fringes.

"That way we don't end up with 500 units of accommodation in the existing buildings and we wouldn't be arguing the toss.

"I don't have problems with them trying to make money, but do have a problem being hoisted with 500 dwellings on a satellite site which will completely change the village."

He concluded: "I see myself as a steward of the countryside and for me to put my name to something that alters the village is unacceptable."

Mr Lees told the meeting that a formal planning application would be submitted to CDC by the beginning of February 2006, when the council would then have 13 weeks to make up its mind.

"If it does meet with central government policies, work would start within a relatively short space of time," he said.

But Mr Lees believed that the application may well be called in to be decided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, because of the rural development.

If that were so, Mr Lees thought it could take another year before a decision is made. Fernhurst district councillor Heather Caird added:

"Comer Group implied the council has a preferred option here which they, the council, are supporting which is the housing only scheme. Reference to the 'council preferred scheme for housing only' is a misrepresentation of the development control officers' position

"From a planning policy point of view the first option for the conversions of these buildings should be for business use. Only when that option has been fully tested should alternatives such as housing be considered.

"The proposals amount to more than a conversion, they add two floors to the existing three-storey building which is unacceptable.

"The addition of hotel, rest home, constitute new building and as such is not supported and any residential development, should that become the supported option, should be confined to the existing floor space only.

"I hope very much that the residents of Fernhurst and Haslemere do not perceive this as a done deal, it most certainly is not, and when the application is lodged with the council I hope your readers will make their feelings known in writing to Chichester district council planning office."

The public exhibition will continue on Saturdays from 2 pm to 4 pm and Wednesdays from 2 pm to 7-30 pm over Christmas.