Opinion has been divided this week over whether services in Marlborough, including schools and health services would be overstretched if 225 more homes are built on the edge of the town.

The general feeling was summed up by estate agent James Tyce from Strakers who said: “Obviously it will put pressure on local facilities but I believe that new homes in the right place will be good for the town. There will be pressure to provide more affordable homes, which will be good.”

Mr Tyce said 225 new homes could bring as many as 1,000 extra people to the town, which would put pressure on health services and the schools if greater provision was not made.

However, Simon Jacobs at Chesterton-Humberts estate agents said he believed the town had sufficient homes already for its road system to handle. “When Tesco opens that will add more traffic onto Salisbury Road.”

He said he would rather see more brown field development, improving and modernising some of the existing housing stock, which would meet the demand for extra homes without the need for new developments.

Jonathan Conning, a partner in Henry George estate agents, believed the new homes would bring a welcome boost for traders. “It can only help the High Street shops and the new Tesco will also benefit from it.”

Judith Denning, a partner in Savernake Forest Dental Surgery, which relocated earlier this year from George Lane to Marlborough Business Park opposite the proposed Crown Estates development, said she was confident the four dental practices in the town would be able to cope with the extra patients the new homes would generate.

Mrs Denning said: “I think there will definitely be a dental capacity having four practices in the town but it will certainly stretch the doctors.”

St John’s headteacher Dr Patrick Hazlewood said that although the school opened only a year ago it was already bulging at the seams and badly needed more buildings and bigger sports fields.

Dr Hazlewood said that according the educational statistics 225 new homes would produce about 70 extra secondary age students but although St John’s was built with maximum capacity of 1,600 it already had 1,650 students. “We are well over capacity already,” said Dr Hazlewood.

“We can accommodate the extra children with more building and we would need more playing fields as well.”

Jazz festival organiser Nick Fogg welcomed the possibility of a hotel being included in the plans saying he knows the difficulties of finding adequate accommodation in Marlborough during major events.

Coun Fogg added: “It would be a shame to have a development of this size without a community facility.”

Nobody from the Marlborough Medical Practice was prepared to comment.