FOUR hundred new homes could be built on the RAF Brampton site after the Ministry of Defence leaves in 2014.

And employment uses on the site could provide 200 additional jobs, with much of the site being earmarked for leisure use.

This contrast with plans put forward by the owner, Defence Estates, last year, which infuriated villagers by suggesting cramming more than 800 additional homes into the area.

Huntingdonshire District Council planners are expected to explain their blueprint for the site – an ‘urban development framework’ – at a meeting of Brampton Parish Council this evening (Wednesday).

“It will set out what we feel would be an appropriate balance between the development that is needed and safeguarding the essential character of the site,” HDC’s head of planning services, Steve Ingram, told The Hunts Post.

“We shall be looking at something that is realistic, which is likely to be rather fewer homes than Defence Estates was envisaging,” he added.

The Defence Estates plan, published last October, envisaged 830 homes, but no school or doctor’s surgery for the new residents and little open space, prompting accusations from villagers of MOD greed. The officers’ mess was to have become an hotel, and the RAF health centre was to close.

So the framework expected tomorrow is likely to come as a relief to villagers, who feared unacceptable pressure on roads and existing village services.