BASINGSTOKE'S Liberal Democrats have condemned the decision by Conservative councillors to make the Manydown planning issue a main plank of their borough election campaign next June.

Deputy council leader Cllr Brian Gurden told The Gazette: "I regard this unequivocally as a politically inspired attack to gain control of the Borough Council next year."

Two weeks ago in an exclusive interview with The Gazette, Cllr Phil Heath, the borough Conservative Shadow Cabinet member for environment, revealed that the Tories will throw any development plans for the Manydown site west of Basingstoke out of the Local Plan up to 2016 if they gain control of the borough at the next local election.

Cllr Gurden said that Cllr Heath - who is also in the Hampshire County Council Cabinet - had never spoken about Manydown in council or at county council meetings, pleading a conflict of interest. B

asingstoke and Deane Borough Council and the county council jointly own the 2,000-acre Manydown site, having purchased it so they would have control over its development.

Recently, when the county council confirmed it was backing the inclusion of Manydown in the Basingstoke Local Plan for development after 2011, council leader Ken Thornber had said that the county Cabinet in its entirety was responsible for that decision.

Regarding Cllr Heath's comments in The Gazette, Cllr Gurden said: "I feel quite relieved in a way that Cllr Heath has come out with it. But it is astonishing that he has taken it upon himself to be the spokesman for his party even though he is not the leader, and despite his conflicts of interest that seem to jeopardise his position on the county Cabinet. But at least I commend him for 'coming out' so to speak and saying what he thinks."

Cllr Gurden claimed that the Conservative opposition had not actively participated in the consultative stages of the Local Plan and had not engaged in the process as much as the Labour/Lib-Dem administration would have liked.

But he added that at the council meeting to confirm the plan, the Conservatives had suddenly proposed, in general terms, the idea of dispersal of the required 3,100 houses across the borough and the use of industrial or office land for housing.

"To be perfectly frank they are coming up with unsustainable options that have been discarded by us early in the process," claimed Cllr Gurden.

Fellow Lib-Dem Cllr Paula Baker, who is the Cabinet member for forward planning, said: "We have already undertaken a thorough root and branch assessment of every brownfield site, including a lot of out-of-date office accommodation - it is all there documented in the Local Plan papers.

"What the Conservatives seem to be totally ignorant of is that the Local Plan has to be robust and has to go through the inquiry stage - and every suggestion that houses can be built on a certain site can be challenged by developers who are seeking the allocation in the plan of land we have not included for development."

Cllr Baker said that Oakley and Worting villages would be untouched by any Manydown development. Developers had proposed housing on sites ringing both villages - more than 1,000 around Oakley alone. But all these proposals had been refused under the draft Local Plan.

Cllr Baker said: "If the Tories are going to take Manydown out and not have a clear idea of where these houses are going to go, it just displays a total lack of understanding of what is needed in a Local Plan."

Cllr Gurden went on: "It's a bit naughty to say they will disperse 3,100 houses across the borough. To be perfectly frank we would not propose something like this, which would spoil many of our traditional market towns and villages and change these rural communities forever.

"If Conservative councillors in rural wards support Cllr Heath's proposals they will find themselves very much out of step with the voices of the parish councils as well as the majority of their residents. They want to keep the facilities very much as they are - not with estates grafted on for people who work in London."

Cllr Gurden said the borough council's view was consistent with the people on whom Basingstoke's present prosperity had been built and whose far-sightedness in allocating land for business development had made it one of the most prosperous areas in the South East.

"We take the prosperity of all those who live and work in the borough very seriously," he insisted. "We are not going to spoil the party by turning employment land into housing -that would jeopardise the future business prospects of the borough. I am amazed that the Conservatives are considering that."

Cllr Baker said that on the map of Manydown that had been published with a country park to the north and four neighbourhoods - A, B C and D - below it, only neighbourhood A and a small part of neighbourhood B would be developed for housing between 2011 and 2016 under the proposals of the draft Local Plan.

She revealed she has written to every councillor who either absented themselves from the last council meeting that approved the Local Plan or voted for the Tory amendment calling for the 3,100 houses to be dispersed around the borough.

"I have asked them where in their world do they want the additional houses to be built if Manydown is not going to be developed," explained Cllr Baker.

Cllr Gurden concluded: "At the moment our best judgement is in the Local Plan. But there will undoubtedly be changes to that plan which come forward as a result of sensible and well-reasoned objections from the public in the next stage of consultations. But even after that, serious objections can be brought out at the public inquiry and argued out in full in front of a Government planning inspector. We are maximising the plan's exposure to public opinion - and we are proud of that.

"It's not only about Manydown but about our long-term future in Basingstoke and Deane - all of us who live, work and play in Basingstoke, and our children and their children."