SCORES of residents have protested against plans to allocate land in a village near York for hundreds of new homes, a travellers' site and a showpeople's site.

Elvington Parish Council yesterday hosted a drop-in event about the proposals, contained in a revised draft of City of York Council's Local Plan, to give residents advice on how they should submit objections before a July 16 deadline.

Parish chairman Ian Bailey said most of the developments had already been turned down by planning inspectors previously.

He said that including an area of land safeguarded' for long term development, there could end up being an extra 250 homes at three different sites, representing a 65 per cent increase in the size of the village.

Members of an action group set up to oppose the proposals took part in the drop-in. They claimed the developments would cause extra traffic congestion and road safety problems, especially around the village school and the green, and also claimed the drainage and sewage system, and the school, were all at capacity.

Group secretary Jo Wedgwood said: "We want to keep Elvington as a traditional, rural village, but this would turn it into a big urban sprawl.

"We are not against development but it should be proportionate and sustainable."

Jean Rudka, 81, who has lived in the village all her life, said: "It just goes too far."

Jane Moorhouse complained about the visual intrusion caused by an existing showpeople's site near her home, which has temporary permission but which the Plan suggests should become a permanent site of three pitches.

The council launched a six-week long "Further Sites Consultation" on June 4, giving people the opportunity to comment on the Plan, which will guide housing, transport and employment developments in York over the next 15 years.

The council's deputy leader, Cllr Tracey Simpson-Laing, said last night that the authority was following Government rules for Local Plans by calling for sites, and landowners had submitted land that they would like to be considered for development in the Plan.

"We are consulting on this, as we statutorily have to do," she said. "But what residents need to remember is that York does need homes for its current children and for its future workforce."