PLANS for a 6,000-home development in Hampshire have been set back after developers were accused of failing to submit a planning application in time.

Fareham Borough council boss Sean Woodward said the authority had "run out of patience" with the landowners and were seeking to compulsory purchase the land on which the new £1bn town called Welborne would be built.

Currently the majority of the land is owned by Buckland Capital Partners on behalf of the Southwick Estate and The BST Group on behalf of The Benge Estate.

However, at an extraordinary meeting last night Fareham Borough Council said the parties had not submitted an application raising fears the projects would be delayed and missing housing targets.

So in a bid to kick-start the 6,000 home plan, Cllr Woodward said the authority was looking at forcing the landowners to sell to them under the compulsory purchase order scheme, and then work with a development partner to submit the application.

All that would delay the project by around 18 months but Cllr Woodward said the authority would hope to make some of that time back during the development stage.

The plan has been fiercely opposed by campaign groups who demonstrated outside a public inquiry which approved the development plan.

Councillor Woodward said: “Collectively the principle landowners and site promoters have been saying their land is available for development for more than 10 years.

“The site was identified in the Council’s core strategy in 2011 and, more recently, the Welborne Plan was formally adopted in 2015.

“However, despite all the parties being fully committed to the development, to date no planning application has been received.

“It is important that the development is progressed, not only to provide the housing that Fareham needs, but in order to help protect our countryside strategic gaps.”

But one of the developers who would be subject to the compulsory purchase said he was “gobsmacked” at the plans and had been planning to submit a planning application in March.

Speaking of that planning application Mark Thistlethwaye from Bucklands Development Ltd, said: “To find that within a few weeks of being approved that the council had taken steps towards a different process was a rude awakening for us."

David Walton, a representative of the Wallington residents association, said: "The collective view around the table tonight was one of absolute amazement and shock at what Fareham Borough Council has proposed."

Shaun Cunningham, from the campaigning group Inform Fareham, said: "We are shocked, for months we have been told that everything is one target and to hear now that the land owners and the council are at war means Welborne is in complete chaos."

The Welborne plan will see 6,000 homes built, including 2,000 affordable homes, on a greenfield site, as well as a secondary school, three primary schools and a new junction on the M27 at junction 10, expected to be completed in 2036.