More than 300 residents signed a petition to save Braddan greenbelt for development.

Site DBH002 is the biggest proposed housing site in the draft area plan for the east.

Thirty hectares of grazing land off Braddan Road to the north east of the Jubilee Oak junction are earmarked for up to 400 new homes, although the latest Cabinet Office document talks in terms of about 230 houses.

A 300-plus name petition was collected in less than a week by campaigners opposing the rezoning of the land, which is adjacent to Braddan cemetery and borders Ballafletcher Road to the west and Port e Chee Meadow to the east.

In a submission to the area plan inquiry, campaigners highlighted concerns over access and significant increases in peak-hour traffic.

They says projected population growth figures are flawed and government should tackle the issue of vacant properties before building hundreds of new homes.

Resident Don Lindsay, in a letter to the Examiner, said: ’The Cabinet Office was represented at the inquiry by a leading QC, no doubt at significant cost. Why did government not feel sufficiently confident to argue their case themselves?

’With 650 acres of open countryside to be vandalised, I would strongly argue this is not what the majority of taxpayers want to see happen.’

Mr Lindsay said mention was made at the inquiry to the need for extensive engineering works to push back the existing retaining wall, which in places is more than 4m high, and the creation of an additional right turn into the new estate.

There is also a possible issue over any future extension of Braddan cemetery.

Braddan Church Burial Committee owns a small parcel of the land running alongside Ballafletcher Road.

Developer Hartford Homes indicted that further land under their control would be made available to the Burial Committee as an alternative extension site.

But Mr Lindsay suggested this would require the approval of Braddan ratepayers - and given the high level of opposition highlighted by the petition, this approval may be difficult to obtain.

* See letters page