RESIDENTS are urging neighbours to make a stand over proposals to build an £80m business park.

Albion Land wants outline planning approval to develop a large site on the corner of Middleton Stoney Road and Howes Lane, in Bicester. The development could create up to 1,200 jobs.

Last August the firm unveiled plans that showed five three-storey warehouses and two smaller office blocks. The site is currently farmland and part of land designated for the 5,000 North West Bicester eco town.

Recently the firm has submitted an environmental impact assessment for the site, which looked at the effect development would have on the wildlife and ecology.

Now residents on the Greenwood estate expect the application to go before the planning committee soon, possibly March 21, and want to gather support to fight it.

One of those in opposition is Susan Harding, of Isis Avenue, Bicester, pictured. She said: “I would like to see the site as a buffer zone between the Greenwood homes estate and the proposed development of 5,000 eco homes.

“Providing somewhere for all of those people to spend their leisure time seems far more appropriate than building an industrial site with potentially three massive distribution warehouses with all the resulting traffic in the middle of a heavily populated residential area.”

People living on the Greenwood estate have raised concerns over noise, pollution, increased traffic and flooding and have started a petition.

They say the development is more suited to the edge of town, nearer junction nine of the M40, and away from homes. Albion Land did not comment.