Angry allotment holders have again confronted Eastleigh Council over controversial plans to build hundreds of homes on their plots.

This time they took their battle to the meeting of the council's powerful executive committee.

This came just days after scores of protesters marched to the council offices to hand over 10,000 objection forms.

They were protesting at plans to build hundreds of new homes on three of the town's allotment sites, at Woodside, Monks Way and South Street.

To a barrage of heckling and interruptions, the executive approved proposals for five new allotment sites at Boyatt Wood, Chestnut Avenue, Twyford Road and Lakeside at Eastleigh, and Eagle Close in Chandler's Ford.

The council say they are ready to spend £500,000 revamping existing sites and developing new ones to a high standard.

But the proposals were roundly rejected by plot holders who packed into the public gallery.

Vice-chairman of Eastleigh and Bishopstoke Allotments Association Tony Murrills told the executive they were strongly opposed to the contents of the latest report.

Of the two biggest proposed sites at Chestnut Avenue and Boyatt Lane, he said: "The association maintains that problems of excessive motorway noise, risk of air pollution, poor soil, sloping sites, overshadowing, inaccess-ibility, remoteness and loneliness render these sites unsuitable as replacement allotments."

He pointed out that only three plot holders had expressed any interest in the new Boyatt Lane site - yet the council were proposing 104 plots.

Woodside allotment holder Barry Bunce claimed the two remote sites alongside the M3 were so noisy and polluted that if they were workplaces they could fall foul of the law.

The council says environmental studies show the two motorway sites are suitable for allotments, and that Eastleigh will be well above the national average for allotment provision.

They will even consider transferring soil from old plots to the new sites.

Council leader Keith House said Eastleigh people needed the new houses they were proposing.

He said: "This is the right thing to do. Sometimes the right thing is not popular."

But Conservative councillor John Caldwell accused the Liberal Democrat executive of undue haste.

He said: "You are trying to evict a commun-ity. You are evicting people who have worked on these allotments for decades. I think it is shameful."

The report put before the executive outlined the desperate need for more homes in Eastleigh. Over the last year, the number of people seeking council help with housing had increased by 1,800 to about 3,500.