Flood risk and access caused most concern to Wanborough Parish Council when it discussed plans for one of Swindon’s New Eastern Villages.

David Wilson Homes has lodged a formal proposal to build 370 houses in the southern half of the Foxbridge allocation – a large triangle of land between the A419 and Wanborough Road.

Another application is expected for the northern half of the site for 330 homes by a different developer.

While the application will be decided by Swindon Borough Council, parish councils are asked to comment on applications in their area.

And Wanborough’s councillors are not impressed.

They said one issue was that they could not judge the entirety of the the new village and how it will work without knowing how the northern half of the development will look.

The southern half sits south of the connector road, which will run through the villages, connecting them to South Marston and the Commonhead roundabout, and the M4.

The council’s chairman Bob Biggs said: “Everything south of the road is houses, all the schools and shops are north of the road, and we don’t know how people will be expected to get across the road.

"All children are meant to be able to walk or cycle to school safely.”

Whether traffic would be using Wanborough Road as a rat run to avoid the southern connector rad and Junction 15 of the M4 was another significant concern of the members.

It was pointed out that while a lot of the village’s allocated land would be green open space, much of that was in the flood zone and could be affected by increased run-off built-on land.