Plans for a key Chippenham town centre site offers too many houses and too few jobs, the town council has said.

Councillors have made a last-ditch protest in a bid to halt the new housing development on the former Flowers scrapyard site, off Wood Lane.

Outline planning permission was granted for the mixed development but members of the town council's planning and environment committee have made a last plea for the scheme to be reconsidered.

The committee said: "It is only a large housing development with a small office development and a single shop as a token towards what should be a mixed development.

"This application seems to confirm the council's worst fears during the consultation period on the planning brief for this site."

Town council leader Sandie Webb said brakes could be put on an unsuitable development

"I trust my colleagues at the district council to speak from their hearts as well as their heads," she said.

"I believe we can win the case on this the development brief did not give such scant regard for the need for shops and leisure."

Coun Webb said the inclusion of offices was ridiculous because the town had vacant office space, including Bewley House and premises in New Road.

She wants to see shops and leisure facilities on the site off Wood Lane.

"The developers are just having a laugh, including office and one token shop," she said.

"Having a big housing development will push the town centre inwards, and it should be encompassing the town centre with shops and leisure facilities as we wanted."

The plans seek approval for the details of 73 houses to be built by Barratt Homes at the site, which the developers have renamed Saxon Gate.

The plans and illustrations were on display to the public for two weeks in the town's Emery Gate shopping centre because North Wiltshire District Council planners wanted to gauge public opinion.

Planning officer Lachlan Robertson said about 20 people had returned feedback forms after viewing the exhibition and reaction was mixed.

"Some people liked it and some were disappointed there wasn't more leisure use," he said.

"We put the exhibition together because we wanted to see what would happen we're looking at different ways to make it more publicly visible."

Officers have recommended the plans be given the green light, subject to some minor amendments.

Outline plans for the second phase show roads and buildings without mentioning their uses .

As this site is further from the town centre, the town council's planning committee chairman Coun Bill Wood was not optimistic the area would yield the desired employment opportunities.

He said they wanted to see the layout and land use proposals for the whole site before approving part of it, and protested the site was supposed to be a mixed development of housing, employment and leisure.

"I would hope the district council would think about this development in the same way that we are," he said. "It's their decision.

"We need employment. I think there should be more than just a couple of offices and one shop on the part that is nearest the town centre that's the place for commercial development."

But Tony White, of Chippenham Civic Society, said the prospect of shops on the site was wishful thinking.

"It would be nice but I don't know that Chippenham could sustain them," he said. "The scheme proposed looks good. The terraced housing on the sloping hillside is the right design. "It's like the development by KingsOak in Emery Lane and would fit in well."

The plans will be considered by the district council's development control committee on November 26.