FIFTEEN Eastleigh homeowners could find out today whether they are in for a cash bonanza when developers sweep away their houses for a multi-million-pound apartment complex.

Brookworth Developments Ltd wants to demolish 13 detached and two semi-detached homes in Twyford Road and replace them with 151 apartments in nine blocks.

Residents of existing homes - between numbers 68 and 96 - have all been offered the market value of their properties plus tens of thousands of pounds in compensation if the redevelopment scheme is given the go-ahead.

Rumours which swept the neighbourhood suggested the compensation figure could be as much as £100,000 per home, although residents and developers have kept tight-lipped about the figure.

The scheme proposes 31 one-bed apartments, 94 two-bedroom and 26 three-bedroom units, developed in two three-storey blocks, three four-storey blocks and four five-storey blocks, including landscaping and a communal garden.

Access would be via two new roads from Twyford Road and the blueprint includes parking for 197 cars - some underground.

Borough planning officers see the development as a "positive and appropriate contemporary contribution" to the town's renaissance quarter which aims to reduce road traffic and fumes by providing high-density housing close to facilities and public transport links.

The scheme could also go some way towards easing chronic sewerage problems suffered in the area.

Tonight, the borough council's Eastleigh Local Area Committee will be recommended to grant planning permission.

The planners' recommendation to approve the scheme is subject to Brookworth assessing commercial noise and rail vibration from the nearby main line and putting forward measures to cope with it. They also say planning permission will not be issued until an amphibian survey has been carried out and no protected species are found - or if they are, they are relocated.

A public exhibition at St Peter's Church Hall in Shakespeare Road, Eastleigh, was staged by planning consultants Turley Associates last September in a bid to explain the proposals, answer any residents' questions and take on board relevant views and comments.

Many members of the public left September's exhibition voicing fears over the drainage arrangements for the proposed new homes. The council has received just six individual letters of objection from neighbours.

Councillors will be told that talks between the developer, Southern Water and the council's drainage engineers have come up with a strategy - agreed by Southern Water and the Environment Agency - which would improve the drainage situation.