WILLITON could be swamped by a 200 home housing estate under proposals being put forward by West Somerset District Council.

Councillors want to ditch controversial plans to develop Dunster Marsh in favour of building 200 homes and providing 2.5 hectares of employment land on a site just east of Williton between Raglans Cross on the A358 and Pondhead Cross on the A39.

The development will now be included in the draft version of the West Somerset District Local Plan, as councillors met on Wednesday to decide which schemes to keep in and which ones to leave out in light of public responses to their original suggestions.

Councillors were told the development of the 16.5 hectare Williton site would also involve the construction of a new connector road between the A39 and A358, which would ultimately take traffic away from the centre of the village.

Council vice chairman Colin Hill welcomed the proposal after being told that original plans to build 135 homes at Dunster Marsh had met a barrage of opposition.

There were concerns that a development at the marsh would not have the benefit of local services such as shops and a post office, while Dunster School might not be able to cope with the expected influx of children.

Trevor Shaw, the council's planning policy and rural regeneration officer, told the meeting: "Development proposals will impact on the immediate local character of Marsh Street and represent a fundamental change from the present status of the village.

"In addition, the non-residential elements of the scheme do not comprehensively address the future needs of the village in terms of service provision."

He advised councillors to drop the entire development plan for Dunster Marsh, replacing it instead with the development of the land east of Williton.

Cllr Hill said: "I believe the land east of Williton option is by far the easiest way to go forward as it will create houses and employment as well.

"It is also the best chance we will have of getting an integrated transport system - but if it does come, it will turn Williton into a very different place than it is now."

While Minehead South councillor Simon Stokes said there was a desperate shortage of housing in Minehead, his colleague Cllr Christine Lawrence said pressures on local services such as schools also had to be considered.

Endorsing the Williton proposal over Dunster Marsh she said Danesfield Community School, in Williton, was currently undersubscribed compared with Minehead, which had a much greater demand on its places.

Mr Shaw said the Williton site benefited from good local facilities and the scale of the development would also mean "maximum provision of contributions to community facilities" by the developers.

He added: "The land is totally greenfield in character, but can be justifiably regarded as an urban extension. The western, northern and southern site boundaries adjoin existing development limits of Williton."

After some consideration, councillors decided to include the Williton proposal in the draft local plan, throwing out the Dunster Marsh scheme altogether.

They also agreed to earmark sites for a further 160 homes to be built in the West Somerset area.

These included 90 in Seaward Way, Minehead, an additional 40 in Williton split equally between the rear of North Street and Bridge Street East, and 30 in St Audries Close East, in Stogursey.

Meanwhile, Dulverton and Brushford councillor, Keith Ross, successfully argued to have the highways depot on the B3222 near Dulverton included in the draft plan as a potential site for employment development.

Other potential employment land sites to be included in the draft local plan were 3.3 hectares at Roughmoor, in Williton, 1.0 hectare at Brendon Road, in Watchet, and 0.5 of a hectare at Fairfield, Brushford.

Following advice from Mr Shaw, councillors agreed to delete Mart Road, in Minehead and the former Lido, in Warren Road, Minehead, as potential employment sites, while amending plans for the amount of land to be allocated for employment use in Stephenson Road and Hawksworth Road, again in Minehead.

Mr Shaw said the next stage would be to publish another document cataloguing all the changes before asking for further comments from the public and "external bodies".

After that a public inquiry would be held in West Somerset next year before the local plan was officially adopted as policy.

The current draft plan also includes proposals to tie new development in Exmoor National Park to local needs and for relief roads to be built off the A39 at Washford, Carhampton and Williton.