RESIDENTS expressed their disgust at plans to build new homes on a popular playing field.

Basildon Council has lodged outline plans to build as many as 25 homes off Felmores, next to Northlands Park, Pitsea.

Locals have already gathered a protest petition with more than 500 signatures.

The field is the latest pocket of land to be earmarked by the council for sale to help fund the £38million sporting village.

But residents on the Felmores estate claim generations of children have used the playing field, and it should be preserved for decades to come.

They said the children will be worse off because the sale would remove somewhere they can exercise on their doorsteps.

Christine Tuoy, 57, of Loxford, who has lived in the area for 28 years, said: “My children and my grandchildren have played there.

“The area here is quite closed in and that place is just somewhere they can chill out and enjoy a bit of open space.

“Kids play football out there until 10pm or 11pm sometimes and people walk their dogs there.

“People round here don’t have lots of money. The children aren’t going to go up to Gloucester Park and pay for swimming all the time.”

The proposals have been put forward by David Lock Associates, which the council has paid to draw up housing applications on plots all over the district.

Under the plans, the council will have the option to sell off plots with outline planning permission to developers, to help pay for the sporting village.

Phil Rackley, the council’s deputy Labour leader, is opposed to the idea and he has prompted an extraordinary council meeting, which will take place on Monday, August 16, as revealed in the Echo last week.

Council leader Tony Ball said the council had carried out studies of the land where planning applications were being made and he believes it is the right thing to do.

Of the Felmores proposal, he said: “It’s directly behind the main facilities of Northlands Park and not adding anything.

“I’m clear that the decisions to dispose of all these places were the right thing to do to fund the sporting village.”

Mr Ball said some parkland and open space was being left in areas where plans had gone in.

Work started on the sporting village, at Gloucester Park, in October last year and is due to open in April 2011.

The complex will have a 50m swimming pool, gymnastics centre, sports hall, fitness suite, floodlit five-a-side football pitch and athletics grandstand.