Anger is growing over plans to turn car parking areas on a Thetford estate into housing developments.Peddars Way Housing Association has already submitted proposals to Breckland Council to demolish two garage forecourt areas on the Ladies Estate for new flats and townhouses.

Anger is growing over plans to turn car parking areas on a Thetford estate into housing developments.

Peddars Way Housing Association has already submitted proposals to Breckland Council to demolish two garage forecourt areas on the Ladies Estate for new flats and townhouses.

But it has emerged that the scheme for the garage sites off Mother Julian Close and Celia Phillips Close and Anne Bartholomew Road and Celia Phillips Close is just the tip of the iceberg with the housing association lining up plans for more than 20 other parking areas on the estate.

Officials from the Croxton Road Residents' Association are urging people to air their objections to the latest proposals to Breckland Council by May 1. They say the initiative will cram more housing onto the peaceful estate and exacerbate car parking problems.

In an outline application, Peddars Way wants to knock down 30 garages at a site off Mother Julian Close and Celia Phillips Close for six flats and ten car parking spaces. The housing association has also submitted plans to demolish 32 garages off Anne Bartholomew Road and Celia Phillips Close for four three-bed townhouses and eight parking spaces.

The applicant says the garages are in a “poor condition” and liable to vandalism, with the majority being boarded up and vacant. It adds that a car parking survey suggested that there is a “considerable” unused space on the estate to accommodate spaces lost to the proposed development.

The housing association adds that the two planning applications are “phase one” of a proposed development programme of future garage sites within the Ladies Estate. Eight other garage areas on the estate have been identified as “primary” development sites and 13 others “secondary” sites.

But Mark Ludford, chairman of the Croxton Road Residents' Association, said car parking problems on the estate were already “terrible”.

“We are urging people across the town to put in an objection to cramming new homes into any spaces that Breckland can find because it is not going to stop there if these get the go-ahead. People move to the Ladies Estate because of its open spaces and greenery and the fact that not many people overlook you. That is going to be taken away by these plans,” he said.