CAMPAIGNERS battling to stop drilling for oil in a field near their homes are claiming a Hampshire council's computer system crashed under the weight of objections.

Protesters flooded Eastleigh Council with complaints after it posted details of the plan on its website.

One resident who has set up his own online page to fight the proposals said he was inundated with messages from people who were unable to send their criticisms.

But council chiefs have denied the system was overloaded and said the fault was unrelated.

As previously reported in the Daily Echo, Northern Petroleum has applied to Hampshire County Council for planning permission to carry out exploratory drilling at the farmland site off Woodhouse Lane, Botley. The plans, which include a 36m mast and 24-hour drilling for up to seven weeks, have been met by fierce opposition from residents of homes close to the site and parents of pupils at Berrywood Primary School less than 400 metres away.

People have packed two public meetings to make their anger clear to company representatives. Eastleigh Council, which is being asked by the county for its views on the application, posted details on its website.

Computer software developer Peter Burford, 45, of Brunel Close, about 350 metres from the proposed drilling site, claimed that the Eastleigh online planning website crashed for three days due to the overwhelming number of objections. He said: "I am still convinced that it was an overload. I don't think Eastleigh was prepared for the number of objections they received."

But an Eastleigh Council spokesman said the problem was not related to an overload.

He said: "The fault occurred during the process that copies information from the council-based server to the Internet service provider. Checks have revealed that the number of inquiries during the day should not have caused an overload."