Objections are mounting over plans to create 130 new homes on an orchard on the outskirts of Sudbury with protestors claiming it could result in urban sprawl and ribbon development and further reduce part of the open countryside to residents of the town.

The scheme for the development in Waldingfield Road has been submitted by Catesby Estates Limited and butts onto land earmarked for the controversial 1,150 homes Chilton Woods site which was given the go ahead last month by Babergh councillors.

It is also close to the area where two 18-year-olds were killed in a tragic fatal crash in August this year.

Nick Miller, the secretary of the influencial Sudbury Area Green Belt, said that the town is spreading out into the countryside on the east and north side with the potential to link up with the villages of Acton and Great Waldingfield.

He said: “This latest plan at the orchard will completely change the outlook of the area and will amount to ribbon development and when you add in Chilton Woods it will just be an urban sprawl and will further stop people in Sudbury getting any green space outside the town.

“People need to be connected to the countryside but it’s going to become further and further for people to get out to the countryside except by car.

“It will be a terrible cheek to build on that site as well as the Chilton Woods development. All we area asking for is a bit of a green step between the town and the developments and think it should be left as an orchard.”

A number of local residents have also raised their objections to the scheme along with Lady Hart of Chilton, Lord Phillips of Sudbury and the Suffolk Preservations Society, with many identifying a lack of any measures to ease the traffic congestion which more vehicles on Waldingfield Road will bring and the loss of wildlife.

They say it does nothing to avoid the very dangerous entry and exit from the site onto the road which is within 100 yards of a bend in the road which meansthere is a blind spot at a point just prior to the bend.

Lord Phillips said that Sudbury and Cornard has been over-developed in recent decades, damaging its character, local amenity, preservation of the market town feel, and scale.

He added: “The open land around Sudbury/Cornard is precious/unique being part of our priceless

Stour Valley/Gainsborough/Constable heritage. We can’t have our cake and eat it where planning is concerned and I do realise the very difficult balancing act which councillors are engaged in. But we must stop chipping away at the Stour Valley/amenity land next to Sudbury/Cornard. I believe we

have a duty to the nation, and not just ‘locals’, so to do.”