MORE than 100 family homes could be built on former Ministry of Defence land in Barne Barton under multi-million-pound plans revealed by Devon and Cornwall Housing Association.

The two, three and four-bedroom houses would be placed on unused land at two sites: Foulston Avenue and Kinterbury Square.

The land, which has stunning views of the Tamar, was sold by the MoD to the Homes and Communities Agency this year.

The HCA asked Devon and Cornwall Housing to draw up social housing plans and it has worked with architects Lacey Hickie Caley.

The housing association envisages building two terraces, containing 41 homes, on 1.4 hectares at Foulston Avenue, and another 70 houses on 2.2 hectares at Kinterbury Square.

The exact design of the buildings will be contained in a detailed planning application, expected to be submitted to Plymouth City Council by the end of this month.

If the plans are approved the housing association would then have to apply to the HCA for 'millions of pounds' of funding.

If successful, it envisages work starting next spring, with families moving into the houses by the spring of 2011.

Matt Ward, development manager at Devon and Cornwall Housing Association, which already has more than 200 properties in Barne Barton, said: "A lot of the existing accommodation in this area is flats – we want to provide family accommodation."

He said the Foulston Avenue site was envisaged as comprising 40 per cent shared ownership properties, and 60 per cent for "affordable" rent: typically 50 per cent to 66 per cent of open market rents.

At Kinterbury Square the mix is envisaged as 25 per cent shared ownership and 75 per cent rented.

Mr Ward said: "We are hoping that some rented accommodation, in time, could be converted into shared ownership or outright sale.

"In the long-term we would want to provide more home ownership opportunities."

Both sites have been the subject of MoD planning applications before. The Foulston Avenue site already has consent for 32 houses, although the Kinterbury Square proposals were withdrawn.

Mr Ward said strategy documents for Plymouth and Barne Barton identified a need for affordable family housing.

"They are not little boxes, but larger than a private developer would build.

He said an independent ecological survey was being carried out in a bid to protect populations of dormice, badgers, bats, reptiles and other creatures.

The plans were revealed to Barne Barton residents at an open day at the Tamar View Community Resource Centre, yesterday .

Foulston Avenue resident Joanne Meenan said: "I think it's a really nice idea."

She said the land that was proposed for housing was "really not used for anything" at present and that the plans were "nicely proportioned".

However, Fegun Road resident Inga Newbeck said she was worried about the loss of green space and the impact on infrastructure if more families move into the area.

"There are no amenities here," she said. "We need a surgery, a dentist; we don't have anything."

Devon and Cornwall Housing Association will be revealing proposals for another development, at South Trelawny in Ham, next Monday, November 9, from noon to 7pm at the old South Trelawny School, off Jedburgh Crescent.