ADD UPDATE: 11 October 2025: The wave of local people submitting their views to house builders Croudace and Highwood on their plan for a major new development of up to 3,400 north east of Fair Oak (see map above) continues to grow. Many thanks to everyone for your incredible energy and support.
If you have not yet submitted your views, please do as soon as you can. The best way is by emailing them to [email protected], copying [email protected]. This enables you not only to express your views how you wish (and not be confined by the house builders’ consultation form), but also copy them easily to us for the record.
We shared ADD’s message to the house builders on 24 September. To get a flavour of what other people are saying, please see one powerful submission below.
With very many thanks again to everyone for your help and support.
STARTS
Dear Croudace/Highwood,
I am writing in response to your current consultation on proposals for land north east of Fair Oak. Please record this as a formal objection.
Lack of Transparency
Your consultation website fails to disclose the true scale of the scheme. Nowhere on your public-facing materials is there any reference to the number of homes you are proposing. It is only by reviewing your EIA Screening Request to Eastleigh Borough Council that the figure of up to 3,400 homes becomes clear. That omission is indefensible.
Equally, the aerial photograph you use on your home page is clearly out of date, excluding existing major developments (such as Pembers Hill). The effect is to minimise the visible impact of your proposals. Presenting incomplete or selective information undermines trust and calls into question the credibility of the entire exercise.
Fundamental Breach of the Local Plan
The land in question is designated as countryside (Policy S5) in the adopted Eastleigh Local Plan (2016–2036). Policy S5 is explicit:
“There will be a presumption against new development in the countryside. Planning permission will only be granted where it is for one of a limited range of uses… and where it does not have an adverse impact on the character of the countryside, settlement gaps, biodiversity, or the landscape setting of the South Downs National Park.”
The Government’s Planning Inspector was equally clear. In her post-hearings letter, she wrote:
“The Strategic Growth Option at Bishopstoke and Fair Oak (Options B and C) is not justified and is not consistent with national policy. Its development would be unsustainable in transport terms, would cause harm to settlement gaps, and would have adverse impacts on sensitive landscapes adjoining the South Downs National Park.”
Her Final Report (March 2022) concluded:
“Options B and C… should be deleted from the Local Plan.”
Despite this, your current proposal seeks to resurrect what has already been examined and rejected as unsound.
Unsustainable Scale
According to the most recent Census (2021), the combined area of Fair Oak and Horton Heath has 4,618 households and 11,531 residents. Your proposal for up to 3,400 dwellings would therefore represent at least a 74% increase in households and a potential 73% increase in population. In reality, the true percentage increase for Fair Oak itself will be higher still, because the Census figures include Horton Heath, which is already undergoing massive expansion through the “One Horton Heath” development.
This is not an extension to a village; it is the creation of a new town at the edge of the Borough and the surrounding countryside, immediately adjacent to the South Downs National Park.
Environmental and Countryside Impact
The site is hemmed in by a network of irreplaceable and mature woodland, including Tippers Copse and Hall Lands Copse (both designated Ancient and Semi-Natural Woodland and SINCs), together with Park Hills Wood and Gore Copse. These woodlands form a vital ecological network and a defensible settlement boundary.
Your proposals talk of creating “new woodland” and “green infrastructure.” This comparison is fundamentally flawed. Ancient and mature woodlands cannot be recreated by planting trees on farmland. They are centuries-old ecosystems with complex soil structures, fungi networks, and biodiversity that cannot simply be replaced. New planting, even if delivered, will take generations to approach the ecological value of what already exists – and will remain fragmented and degraded by proximity to housing.
To claim “biodiversity gain” by inserting small patches of planting while simultaneously destroying countryside and threatening ancient woodland is meaningless. The Planning Inspector previously recognised the importance of maintaining settlement gaps and ecological balance here. To ignore those findings now would cause irreversible harm – not only to local biodiversity, but also to the landscape setting of the South Downs National Park, to which this area serves as a gateway.
Infrastructure Failings
The infrastructure case presented is weak and unrealistic.
- Roads: Rural lanes and local junctions are already overloaded. Adding thousands of homes would generate tens of thousands of extra car journeys each day.
- Public Transport: Far from improving, services are in retreat – the long-standing 61 bus route between Eastleigh and Winchester was axed in August 2025. This leaves Fair Oak residents even more dependent on cars.
- Schools and Healthcare: Local schools and GP practices are already under pressure. Nationally, new schools have even been mothballed because of falling pupil numbers, yet developers still cite them as benefits. The Inspector previously warned against such car-dependent, isolated developments.
- Utilities and Services: Eastleigh Borough Council already struggles to maintain reliable bin collections, while residents experience periodic blackouts. Adding 3,400 homes would only further degrade essential services.
Far from being a sustainable location, this site would require enormous additional services and infrastructure just to stand still – a burden that local systems simply cannot absorb.
Loss of Place and Character
Fair Oak already struggles to maintain a viable centre. Imposing an estate of this scale would obliterate local identity, replacing it with soulless, commuter-dormitory sprawl.
Good town planning is about creating wholesome, dynamic communities where homes, schools, businesses, and services evolve together. What you propose is the opposite: processed, formulaic development that turns countryside into disconnected housing estates with token strips of green space. This is not community-building, it is profit-driven land consumption.
Speculative Proposal Undermining the Local Plan Review
Eastleigh Borough Council is currently reviewing its Local Plan for post-2029 housing needs. A proper decision on Strategic Development Options is not expected until late 2026. For developers to push forward now with their own consultation and an EIA Screening Request is a clear attempt to bypass the democratic, evidence-based process. The Planning Inspector has already found that such developer-led proposals are unsound and unjustified.
Consultation Failings
For a scheme of this seismic scale, your consultation has been poorly publicised and minimally informative. I only became aware of it through Eastleigh Borough Council’s planning alerts. Fellow residents have found your online form inaccessible. This is not meaningful engagement but a token exercise designed to manufacture the appearance of consultation.
Conclusion
This proposal is unsustainable in principle, disproportionate in scale, environmentally damaging, and contrary to both the Planning Inspector’s findings and the adopted Local Plan. It represents an unacceptable attempt to pre-empt the Local Plan review and to impose, by stealth, development that has already been rejected.
As a resident of Fair Oak parish I therefore record my objection in the strongest possible terms.
ENDS
