Felixstowe homes plans row

COMMUNITY leaders last night called for just over half the 2,000 homes being proposed for Felixstowe in the next 16 years to actually be built.

Richard Cornwell

COMMUNITY leaders last night called for just over half the 2,000 homes being proposed for Felixstowe in the next 16 years to actually be built.

Confusion reigned as Conservative town councillors watered down mayor Mike Deacon's call for limited housing development - mainly affordable homes - in the town and rejected a call for more homes to be spread across the Suffolk Coastal area.

There was anger among residents as two councillors, Angel and John Goodwin, who said they had changed their minds over the housing issue, then failed to vote against their Conservative colleagues and instead abstained.

Suffolk Coastal wants to build 2,000 homes in Felixstowe and the Trimleys between now and 2025 and says the area needs at least 1,700 of these simply to stand still or else see the population decline, schools and shops close, and leisure facilities lost.

The decision of the town council's extraordinary meeting at Orwell High School will now be sent to Suffolk Coastal.

Councillors felt there should be 70 homes a year built on “distributed sites” but left the door open for large sites to be allocated as long as the homes were needed and the infrastructure was built first.