Dereham's green spaces should be protected against development, town bosses have stressed as part of a massive new planning blueprint being drawn up to shape the future of the town.

Dereham's green spaces should be protected against development, town bosses have stressed as part of a massive new planning blueprint being drawn up to shape the future of the town.

Back gardens, green spaces and amenity areas should be safeguarded with tighter rules under the new Local Development Framework (LDF), being drawn up by Breckland Council, say town councillors.

Breckland's plan will outline where hundreds of new homes and businesses should be built up

to 2026.

But councillors in Dereham have this week lodged objections to about two- thirds of a raft of some 30 sites put forward developers and landowners for inclusion in the plan.

A major concern of the town council is that green spaces in the town need to be protected.

Its submission to Breckland requests that rules should be stricter to protect gardens and amenity areas from development.

It has carried out a green infrastructure (GI) study which identifies areas of green garden zones it particularly wants protected - especially gardens of homes along Stone Road, which back onto Potters Fen.

A statement from the council said: “There is a real need to increase the level of open space provision in the town and we would like to address this through the LDF process.

“One of the reasons for the GI study was to ensure that new development does not seriously impact on the biodiversity and wildlife of the area.”

More than 650 parcels of land - enough for 90,000 new homes around the towns of Attleborough, Dereham, Swaffham and Watton and their surrounding villages - were put forward to Breckland.

The government has said it wants to see 508,000 homes built in the region by 2021 as part of the East of England Plan.

It wants to see 80,000 of those in Norfolk, including 33,000 in the greater Norwich area and 15,200 in Breckland.

The land put forward in Breckland was far more than is needed and many sites have already been deemed unreasonable and look unlikely to progress any further.

THE town council is against development on a large chunk of land south of Dumping Green and east of Yaxham Road, two sites between Swanton Road and the old railway line on the opposite side of Swanton Road and land off Westfield Road.

It objects, on the whole, to building homes north of the B1110 Norwich Road to the back and either side of the football club. However, it states some development would be permissible and that part of the land had been earmarked as a possible site for a new town cemetery.

It is against the idea of new homes north and south of the A47 west of Drayton Hall Lane and east of The Broadway, and objects to development on land at Cherry Drift off Norwich Road, land off Yaxham Road, land north of Northgate Road and land south of the A47 off Mattishall Road.

THE town council supports development for commercial or employment use on a number of sites between Dumpling Green and the A47. Part of this land has also been identified by the council as for possible use as a new cemetery.

Although it supports developing a number of chunks of land off Malthouse Cottages at the back of Dereham railway station, it wants to see

a masterplan for the area.

Other sites supported are land between Greenfields Way, Wheatcroft Way and the A47, another site north of Dereham Road east of Vale Farm,

The council supports limited development on land off Dereham Road near St Michael's Court and off Shipdham Road adjacent to Heidi Close.