RESIDENTS of Odiham and North Warnborough turned out en masse to the annual parish assembly on Tuesday - hot foot from an even bigger meeting in the church on behalf of the ‘Vote YES’ campaign for the parish poll due to be held today (Thursday).

The unprecedented decision to call a parish poll came in March when residents backed a vote of no confidence in the majority of members of Odiham Parish Council, following their decision to support a controversial planning application that some feel could sound the death knell for an historic deer park.

Despite 500 public objections, Odiham Parish Council supported the application by Surrey-based Octagon Developments Ltd for change of use on part of the deer park at Dunleys Hill, North Warnborough, from agricultural land to public and private open spaces, including a 28-space car park and seven large residential properties.

At the polling booth, the ‘yes or no’ question on the ballot paper will ask voters if they have lost confidence in those councillors who, it will suggest, have not upheld the policies of the Odiham and North Warnborough Neighbourhood Plan which defines the deer park as a conservation area, forming a local gap to avoid the residential coalescence between Odiham and North Warnborough, and is not one of the seven sites allocated in the area for housing.

According to Save the Deer Park Action Group spokesman Hugh Sheppard, 250 people attended the first meeting in the church, headed by parish poll organiser Charles Peal.

“This was after a long period of tension between Odiham Parish Council and the community team it had set up to deliver a plan that took some three years and which it then summarily disbanded before the ink was dry.”

According to Mr Sheppard, parish council chairman Jon Hale took the meeting through all the council does for the community, from the rural exception scheme for housing to the installation of a junior play area and a teenage amenity project.

“In the context of Odiham Parish Council responsibility as a statutory consultee for local planning, Mr Hale explained the vision that he and other councillors have for the future of the deer park; a future in which he felt that better footpaths, a cycle track and the visitor attraction of a herd of deer would benefit the community,” said Mr Sheppard.

Hampshire county councillor Jonathan Glen then compered a question-and-answer session which included a challenge to Mr Hale’s priority on the vision and objectives of the neighbourhood plan and expressing concern over his apparent reliance on covenants that, while there to protect against further development in perpetuity was, some feared, “totally misplaced”.

While on the one hand, according to Mr Sheppard, it was argued that the 500 objectors to the deer park application were but 10 per cent of the community, and that Mr Hale was right to represent all those who had not responded, others were of the opinion that people who hadn’t expressed a view could not be expected to be taken into account.

There were questions too about the unknown cost of the proposed cycle track through the park if there was no housing scheme, and whether it would be feasible to connect the two villages, which must now await the outcome of the parish poll and what it will mean.