PROTESTERS called on Swindon Borough Council to remove green spaces in south Swindon from a list of potential development sites.

More than a hundred residents from Park South and Lawn descended on Oldlands Walk, near Queen’s Drive for the protest meeting.

It followed the inclusion of three green spaces in the borough council’s Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment. The document, published as the council develops its new Local Plan, lists sites in Swindon that could in the future be given up for development.

Residents are furious that plots at Lakeside, by the Lawns park, and either side of Queen’s Drive north of the Coate Water roundabout have been listed in the document.

Protest organiser Chris Watts, a Labour ward councillor and chairman of South Swindon Parish Council, said: “Oldlands Walk is a piece of land that, if you speak to people here who have been here for 50 years they’ll tell you how they grew up seeing people play here, using it for recreation. They’ve seen wildlife here. It’s a very important open space for people’s health and wellbeing.

“We’ve got to protect these pieces of land, because once you start to lose these pieces of land there’s a domino effect.”

He questioned why the sites had been included, citing the fact they had appeared to be part of a strategic green corridor identified in Swindon’s Local Plan adopted in 2015. Oldlands Walk could be eligible for village green status, Coun Watts added.

Sarah Church, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for South Swindon, backed the campaign. She told protestors: “This is about all of our health, about where children play, where you take your dog for a walk. We don’t want to lose it.”

Kelly Brewer, 40, has lived on Oldlands Walk for 33 years: “It’s our park. Why change it? It doesn’t look like much, because it’s the winter.

“But come the spring you see the fox cubs, the children playing. People use it for family events. You can’t take it away.”

Irene Stollery walked from her home in Lawn to join the Park South protest: “We’ve just got to stand and fight this, because ultimately it’s a case of what’s next? The reason we live in Lawn, the reason they want to build their houses there is because of the beauty of what we look out onto.”

Swindon Borough Council has said sites identified in the list might not necessarily be included as potential development land in the Local Plan when a draft is published next year.

Gary Sumner, cabinet member for planning, said: “The loss of open space will be taken into account when a decision is made on whether this site is taken forward to the six-week statutory consultation on the draft Local Plan next spring.”

Coun Sumner added he had been approached by local Conservative parish councillor Zachary Hawson over the site: “I assured him we will review the comments from all sites before moving on to the Local Plan Review.”

Last week, South Swindon Parish Council voted unanimously to approach the borough to take over the Lakeside and Coate Water roundabout sites on a 99-year-lease.

A public meeting to discuss the Oldlands Walk development will be held in December.