CAMPAIGNERS have lost their battle to save cherished playing fields from housing development.

Basildon councillors gave plans for 73 homes on Kent View Road recreation ground in Vange the green light during a heated meeting, despite passionate opposition from residents.

Campaigners had made a last-ditch attempt to save the land for community use by presenting their objections to councillors and protesting before the meeting, but the application was approved by five votes to two.

The result was met by angry shouts from more than 100 residents, who ensured the atmosphere at Basildon’s Towngate Theatre was highly charged throughout the four-and-a-half-hour meeting.

Basildon Council says it needs to sell the site, plus land at Felmores, in Pitsea, and Pound Lane, Laindon, to help fund the £38million Sporting Village at Gloucester Park, Basildon.

Members of the control and traffic management committee were at loggerheads until midnight, as Labour leader Linda Gordon and Liberal Democrat leader Geoff Williams argued building on open space went against policy, but Conservative members disagreed.

A group of 18 residents and councillors raised concerns about traffic, parking, surface flooding, sewerage, lack of green space and noise.

Peter Stanley, of nearby Paslowes, cited a policy from the Basildon District Local Plan, which states development cannot take place on open space if it causes significant harm to the recreational or amenity value of the open space or to the character of the area.

But council planning officer Clive Simpson said planning policies were only for guidance and the application complied with other policies.

Jean Parsons, of Kent View Road, said: “It will be unsafe for children to go to another green space of the same size. It will cause more of a carbon footprint and road congestion for each person to travel to another green site or the Sporting Village.”

Committee chairman Stephen Hillier said there was nothing in the findings of external bodies and assessments of the site to make him reject the application.

He added: “There’s nothing that gives us the opportunity to say this application should not be given approval.”