FELIXSTOWE: Allotment land is to be used for ten desperately-needed new affordable homes.

Felixstowe currently has 162 households waiting for two-bed accommodation and 76 waiting for three-bed and council officials say the new properties will go to local people.

Developers though will have to provide new allotments as there are 50 people on the town council’s waiting list for plots, plus footpaths and a �40,000 landscaping scheme to provide wildlife habitat.

They will also have to set aside another �20,000 for future maintenance of the wildlife haven to support protected species including bats, breeding birds, reptiles, hedgehogs, common toads and stag beetles.

There will also be additional planting to form areas of native hedging, wildflower meadows and additional tree planting.

Members of Suffolk Coastal’s south area development control sub committee gave the go-ahead to the homes on the 4.5-acre site of council-owned allotments and paddocks to the south of Philip Avenue, Elizabeth Way and Charles Road on the Coronation estate.

The scheme will feature four two-bed and five three-bed homes and a bungalow, all of them for rent.

Archaeologists will carry out a dig on the site before work starts, as a Roman coin and a Bronze Age hoard have been found there, and it was used as a soldiers’ camp in the Second World War.

Orwell Housing Association and Suffolk Coastal Council have been discussing the site – which has long been regarded as a buffer zone between the estate and the port – for two years and the council will give the land for the homes.

? Do you think the site is the right place for homes? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich IP4 1AN.