CAMPAIGNERS were today getting ready to send their own special Christmas message to housing developers – "Your proposals are a turkey".Members of STAG – Save Trimley Against Growth – were launching their offensive against the latest ideas for up to 1,500 homes in the twin villages.

CAMPAIGNERS were today getting ready to send their own special Christmas message to housing developers - "Your proposals are a turkey".

Members of STAG - Save Trimley Against Growth - were launching their offensive against the latest ideas for up to 1,500 homes in the twin villages.

They were dressing up as Santas and getting ready to "sleigh" Trinity College's scaled-down plans for developing the villages with homes, a new primary school, supermarket and businesses.

STAG spokesman Ian Cowan said the college's vision for the future of the communities was one Christmas present residents did not want.

"You can bet that Trinity College will go for 1,500 rather than 1,200 houses. This is totally unacceptable in villages with a combined population of less than 6,000 people," he said.

"If this development is approved it will set a precedent for even more houses in the coming years.

"Everything that we value will be destroyed - a rural community surrounded by open countryside. These houses are not wanted and not needed. It is imperative that the villagers band together to fight them off."

STAG fears 1,500 homes will cause impossible strain on schools, education and health care.

It claims High Road will be permanently jammed with traffic and the villages will face 20 years of disruption from building works and building traffic.

It fears other parts of the Felixstowe peninsula are under threat and in the end there will be "an urban sprawl stretching all the way from Felixstowe to Ipswich".

Mr Cowan said: "We already have empty shops in the village - so what will happen to the rest when a supermarket opens? The same thing that happens everywhere else - they could be forced out of business.

"In addition, a supermarket will generate huge amounts of car traffic, so that shoppers will be joining the traffic jams of commuters on the High Road."

In its revision of its vision for the future of the villages, Trinity College has dramatically reduced the amount of land for housing.

To keep St Martin and St Mary separate, there would be no homes built on fields between Gun Lane and Gaymers Lane one side of High Road, nor Church and Thurmans Lanes on the other.

Most of the development would now take place behind the sports and social club and mushroom farm down to the railway line, and between the link road off the A14 and Church Lane. The Farmlands estate would also be "rounded off".

WEBLINKS: www.savetrimely.co.uk

www.trimley-vision.co.uk

www.trimley-st-mary.org.uk

How many homes do you think should be built in the Trimleys - and where should they be put? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk