DEVELOPMENT on this huge Merseyside estate is “exploding” – and there’s anger after even more homes were approved last night.

Plans for 10 houses and four apartments were approved for the Woodchurch Estate by Wirral Council on Thursday – despite campaigners having “fought for years” to turn it into something for the community.

They will now be built on vacant land on Grasswood Road after being unanimously approved by planners, despite a petition of more than 50 names and an objector telling councillors local residents had not been listened to.

Mark Stevenson told the meeting: “Nobody’s spoken to us or listened to us.

“Everybody’s forgotten about the community. It’s just going to explode. I’m here to say I don’t want it exploding on my doorstep.

“We don’t want this to go ahead – we want to work with whoever to develop this in the right way.

“This going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang is going to make the system go bang.”

He said the plans were “landed” on the community in August, with notifications only being sent to nearby flats, and not homes close to the site who they would also affect.

He said: “Woodchurch was one of the biggest estates in Europe at one point, but they’re still building and building, and the infrastructure can’t handle it.

“We’re being polluted, we’ve got drainage problems. It’s constant. We are trying to raise a community and bring our children up and teach them properly.”

He also described traffic problems in the area as a “rat race”, adding: “The planning needs to consider the people as well. We fought for a long time for these fields, but they were sold out of the blue.

“What I’m asking you all is that it’s not your back gardens, not your homes. We’ve bought our houses there and tried to develop a community.

“We’re trying to do the right thing. You’re just throwing building on top of building and not thinking about the people.

The development, led by Grasswood Ltd, will see 10% affordable housing, despite objectors wanting every home to be affordable.

A representative from Grasswood Ltd was not at the meeting to speak in favour of the plans.

Referring to the plans, the report said: “The dwellings laid out as part of the original estate are modest in their scale, proportion and detail.

“The grain of development within the vicinity is semi-regular with areas of open green space punctuating the building line. A simple palette of materials has been employed across the estate. There are other examples of later infill developments within the vicinity.”

Committee member Cllr Brian Kenny said he couldn’t find any reason why the development should be refused.

He said: “The problem is as a planning committee we can only make a decision on this application on the grounds of planning rules.

“There’s nothing in [the application] that would give me any reason why this application should be refused. If you look at relevant details, various people have been consulted. None have got any objections.”

They were approved unanimously by the committee, and speaking from the public gallery, Mr Stevenson called for the developers to “work alongside the community”.

He was told by elected members to contact them.