A MAJOR inquiry into the future shape of the borough of Basingstoke and Deane began this week.

The outcome will decide where thousands of homes are to be built up until 2016 and which, if any, new land is used for business.

Government-appointed planning inspector Alan Foster and assistant inspectors David Vickery and Simon Emerson will spend 20 weeks examining objections to the borough council's draft Local Plan, which has been extended to 2016.

The plan - which is a legal requirement - outlines 25 new sites for housing and includes the first phase of the highly controversial Manydown scheme planned for the western side of Basingstoke.

The borough council estimates it must build 7,000 homes and provide sites for a reserve of 2,000 in the years to 2011.

And from 2011 to 2016, it calculates it will need to provide 4,400, which includes 3,100 to be built on Manydown.

But council officers say the figure for 2011 to 2016 is expected to go up to more than 5,000 once new housing requirements are imposed by the South East England Regional Assembly.

At the start of proceedings on Tuesday morning, the borough council's barrister Richard Humphreys (pictured right) outlined the reasons for the inquiry.

He said: "The council takes both the Local Plan process and the inquiry seriously and has committed considerable resources, both human and financial."

He said the draft plan had been drawn up after a lot of public consultation and cautioned that greenfield land would have to be used to meet housing requirements.

He said: "New allocations for development in the period up to 2011 are proposed in Basingstoke, Tadley, Whitchurch, Bramley and Woolton Hill."

He said there was a total of 3,300 objections to the versions of the draft Local Plan.

The date of the inquiry had to be put back from autumn last year because of the weight of objections - mostly to Manydown. Many came from developers whose representatives were out in force at the inquiry on Tuesday.