CAMPAIGNERS hope to track down a family who could hold the key to stopping homes being built on a playing field.

Members of the Vange Community Group want to find members of the Campbell family, who are believed to have previously owned the playing fields off Kent View Road and only sold them to the Basildon Develop-ment Corporation in the Fifties on the proviso the land would be kept as open space.

If the covenant exists, it could scupper plans to build 73 homes on the land, which is being sold off to raise money to pay for the Sporting Village in Gloucester Park.

Vange Community Group member Neil Hart, from Kent View Road, wants to contact descendents of the Campbell family – or people who knew them – to find out if they have documentation or other information relating to the alleged agreement.

He said: “Elderly residents know it as Campbell’s Field and they’ve said it’s common knowledge the land cannot be built on.

“We want to hear from anyone who might have information that might help us find out more about what conditions were put on the field when it was sold to the Basildon Development Corpora-tion.

“If we could find the actual Campbell family, there is a chance they might have a copy of the document.

“Any information they, or other people who knew the Campbells, could provide might help.”

Fellow campaigner Phil Jacobs, from Kent View Road, Vange, said: “So many people still know it as Campbell’s Field, so there must be something in this.”

Basildon Council’s planning officers confirmed the Campbells sold the land to Basildon Development Corporation in 1958, and it was passed to the local authority in 1976.

They insisted there was no agreement with the Campbell family stopping future development.

Mr Hart can be contacted on 07793 748755.