RESIDENTS are up in arms over plans for a multi-million pound housing estate they claim will destroy their long-cherished privacy.

Bellway Homes, the UK's fifth largest builder, hopes to build 125 three and four-bed detached houses on land home to Westlands High School.

The Congleton school is due to close and its pupils transfer to new super highs earmarked for land at Heathfield and Dane Valley highs.

Money from the sale of the Westlands site would be used to offset the cost of creating the new 1,100-pupil schools, currently estimated at £7.8 million.

The Bellway scheme has sparked anger and opposition from people living alongside the Westlands playing fields.

The residents claim the new homes would be only 10 metres from their back gardens, ruining their outlook and privacy.

People living in Cumberland Road and Churchill Close expressed their opposition at a public exhibition of the housing scheme at Westlands on Thursday and Friday.

About 200 people visited the exhibition, and detailed their concerns in a comments book.

June Brown and her Churchill Close neighbours are opposed to the homes, which she said would 'tower' over them.

"The playing fields are eight feet above us, and when we moved here we never dreamed the land would be built on," she said.

"We will have no privacy whatsoever, and I was horrified when I saw the plans."

A Cumberland Road resident, who did not want to be named, said he and his neighbours were 'very upset and concerned' about the scheme and the potential loss of privacy.

"We are planning to organise a petition to press for improvements and amendments to the plans."

Part of the Cheshire County Council scheme envisages the development of a 400 metre running track and three football pitches alongside Heathfield.

Bellway have an option to buy the land, which the county council has agreed terms to acquire.

A county spokesman said the council and Bellway had agreed sale figures for both the Westlands site and the proposed sports field.

"The council is confident it has negotiated the best value for the proposed housing site, and had an independent valuation of the site carried out by a private chartered surveyor."

A spokesman for Manchester planning consultants Drivers Jonas, who are acting for the council and Bellway, said a planning application for the housing scheme would be submitted next month.

If everything goes to plan building could start next August, she said, and the phased scheme would take two years to complete.

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