THE housing developer planning to build 175 homes in Marlborough has been slammed by town councillors, after the firm said it wants to amend the scheme so the hotel which is part of it is built by someone else.

Permission for 175 homes and a hotel was granted by Wiltshire Council to the Crown Estate last year and in March the 33 acres of land off Salisbury Road was sold to Redrow Homes, which is now looking to amend the application.

The town council planning committee has objected to Redrow's plans to split the housing development, 40 per cent of which will be affordable housing, from the hotel, saying it was a major part of the plans and they were worried it may get dropped altogether.

Councillors have also asked to meet Redrow as they felt that the 50-50 split of two to three and four to five bedroom houses was not suitable, saying smaller homes are more affordable for locals and that the scheme should include bungalows and houses suitable for disabled people.

Councillor Nick Fogg said: "A new hotel is essential for the town's economic wellbeing. It appears that they excluded the hotel on the flimsy excuse they are not in business of doing hotels, so why did they get involved in the first place?

"The town council are quite rightly concerned that it may be dropped but we will do our utmost to make sure this is delivered. Too often big developers get their way but we have to make sure they do not do that again here."

The proposal also included open space, play areas, woodland planting and a wild flower meadow, along with environmental protection for local wildlife.

Wiltshire Coun Stewart Dobson said: "This is terribly important that Redrow come and talk with us about our concerns. This development will have a huge impact on the town and it needs to be right.

"I strongly believe we need more two to three bedroom houses because they will be cheaper and that message is coming across from the neighbourhood planning housing survey. We need smaller ones not bigger ones. It has also gone down from 175 homes to 167, which is a change too.

"I have successfully lobbied the strategic planning committee to look at this and I hope to be on that panel as this can give residents to come along to the meeting and air their views.

A Redrow spokesman said: "Redrow has applied for outline planning conditions to enable the developer of the hotel to make separate applications to meet all relevant conditions.

"All parties will continue to work closely with the local community to ensure the scheme helps meet local housing needs and benefits Marlborough residents."