A DEVELOPER has unveiled its plans to build 300 homes on Canvey green belt, calling it the Vermuyden Gateway.

However, the plans have not gone done well with islanders, who viewed them during a public exhibition at the Paddocks Community Centre, Long Road.

Among their concerns are how the island will cope with an influx of new residents, given Canvey’s creaking infrastructure.

Jean Collins, 75, of Eastfield Road, Canvey, who has lived on the island for more than 50 years, said: “There are 45,000 people in this tiny bit of space and that’s too many already.

“We haven’t got the infrastructure – the roads, the drainage.”

She said she had been stuck in traffic for hours at the Waterside Farm route away from the island, when there had been accidents in the area in the past.

Developer Persimmon wants to build on 54 acres between Canvey Road and Cornelius Vermuyden School.

The proposals include creating 26 acres of parkland with footways and cycle paths, a new community facility, and a drainage system able to cope with a breach in the island’s seawalls.

The development will be accessible from a new junction built on Canvey Road, between Waterside Farm roundabout and Roscommon Way roundabout.

The development will be split into three main areas – a nine-acre area for community use, which could house a heath centre, police station, post office or other building of community value; 19 acres of housing to accommodate up to 300 homes, of which 30 per cent would be social housing; and 26 acres of parkland at the north end of the site to be used as a public open space.

A final corner of the site will be saved, as it is home to the remains of an ancient Roman salt works.

A Persimmons spokesman said: “It’s an ideal place for development. It’s within 1.2 miles of Benfleet train station.

“It’s very rare you see a housing development that is providing this much open space.”

The development would have a series of watercourses dug below the level of the homes, designed to fill with water in the event of a flood.

The homes would also be built on raised land 2.7m above sea level, which planners claim would remain dry even in a freak once in 100-year event.

Plans will not be submitted before September.