15342/3GAZETTE & HERALD: The battle to save picturesque Slaughterford from a major housing development began again on Tuesday.

Residents and environmental campaigners faced developers Countryside Residential at a new planning appeal.

Dozens of protesters turned out before the opening of the planning inquiry, carrying placards and banners to demonstrate their opposition to plans to build either nine or 14 new homes on the site of the former Dowding papermill in the tiny hamlet.

Countryside Residential South West Ltd lodged three appeals against refusals by North Wiltshire District Council to grant planning permission for an application to build 14 new homes with garages, car ports, a water treatment sub station, new bridge and weir alterations, a second plan to build nine homes, and Conservation Area consent to demolish the redundant paper mill building.

Residents, supporters and environmentalists have fought long and hard to preserve the character of the village as it is and locked horns with developers at an earlier appeal in 1999.

Veteran campaigner John Perkins, aged 90, stood with the Slaughterford Protection Group campaigners outside the council offices on Tuesday.

"I've lived in Slaughterford nearly 50 years," he said. "Ten years ago developers said they wanted to build 50 houses on the site. They've come back five or six times since then and I've spent a great deal of time and money running the campaign. I find it very tiresome that they keep on trying."

Mr Perkins has passed leadership of the group on to younger campaigners now but continues to support the effort to preserve the village.

"Anyone who knows the area will understand what the roads are like. It is just ridiculous to think of building these houses there."

MP James Gray said he opposed the development and not just because he lived in the village.

"I would take the same interest in any application to build 14 millionaires' houses in protected countryside," he said.

"These proposals go against every possible planning principal. Slaughterford has no school, hospital, jobs, shops and the development would double the size of the village."

The appeal is expected to continue all this week and into next week.

ssingleton@newswilts.co.uk