A GOVERNMENT inspector says up to 170 new houses should be built on a greenfield site off Onslow Road in Newent, with no new housing on an alternative site off Bradfords Lane.

The recommendation comes in a report on the Forest of Dean District Council's local plan, which lays out how the district should be developed in the years to 2011 and where new housing should be accommodated.

It will be put before the council's executive committee on Thursday and approval for the proposal could come at full council on February 19.

FOD principal planning officer Nigel Gibbons said: "The plan could be set in stone by the middle of the year. This will be the largest single development in Newent for a number of years.

"The infrastructure is always a concern, but so much so that the development would have to meet infrastructure requirements, including schools, drainage and open space."

The council's idea for meeting the demand for new homes was for 50 houses off Onslow Road and 60 off Bradfords Lane. Reviewing the plan, the inspector has said that Bradfords Lane is a natural boundary between town and country and no development should take place there.

Members of the council's planning committee voted to accept that view at a meeting on December 16 and that will now be reviewed by the executive committee and then full council.

There will then be a further six week period of public consultation on the revised local plan before it is finalised legally.

The Onslow Road site totals more than 13.5 acres and it will be up to a developer to bring forward a scheme to build on it and apply for planning permission.

The houses could be built in two phases, the first in the period up to 2007 and the second between 2008-2011.

The first phase would be on the triangular field at the end of Onslow Road just before the sunken section of Bury Bar Lane. The second site is to the west of Bury Bar, and to the north of the first site.

Newent mayor Fred Passant said: "The town council did put an objection in to the Bradfords Lane proposal, so from that point of view I am pleased. The inspector decided that Bradfords Lane is a natural boundary between town and countryside."

But Coun David Blick said: "Our big concern for the Onslow Road site is that access on to the Gloucester Road will need to be improved. Its bound to increase traffic problems in town."

He added that drainage on the two fields at present was quite bad.