Villagers' vow to fight homes plan
Residents fighting plans to build hundreds of homes in their village fear being swallowed up by Shrewsbury.
And the people of Bicton have appealed to prospective parliamentary candidates seeking their votes in next week's General Election to fight their corner, warning that Shropshire was in danger of being concreted over.
Plans to build 300 homes on the outskirts of the village have been put forward by developer Hollyhead Estates.
The village – which has fewer than 900 residents – is already the subject of plans for around 750 homes as part of the Shrewsbury west sustainable urban extension.
More than 100 people attended the "Save our Village" meeting last night, filling Bicton Village Hall, with organiser Sue Llewellyn warning: "Bicton just cannot take it.
"We have got a fight on our hands, we are going to stand up to them and we are not going to let this happen under any circumstances, that is the mood."
The meeting was attended by several local politicians, including General Election candidates for Shrewsbury and Atcham, Daniel Kawczynski, Christine Tinker, Suzanne Evans and the Green Party's North Shropshire candidate Duncan Kerr.
Richard Brett, chairman of Bicton Parish Council, said the turnout showed the "strength of feeling in the village".
He said: "I think we have got a good judgement of that strength of feeling.
"We want you to do anything you can in Bicton's cause."
Ms Evans said: "This is happening all over Shropshire. The national planning policy framework makes it very easy to build on prestige green field sites and not so easy to build on brown field sites."
Hollyhead Estates has already reduced the number of houses planned for the development from 340 to around 300.
