PLANNING chiefs said the number of reasons found for turning down proposals for a new housing estate in Amersham "must be close to a record" after rejecting them this week.

Officers at Chiltern District Council came up with eleven reasons for turning down plans to build 35 new dwellings - which included a mixture of houses and flats - on land in between Amersham and Wycombe College and the Lincoln Park housing estate.

When the proposals were put to the authority's planning committee on Thursday they were unanimously rejected as serious concerns at traffic were raised by residents and council members.

Paul Liptrot, chairman of the Lincoln Park Residents' Association, said the current junction to the site with Stanley Hill is "not fit for purpose" and the planned buildings were too close together, too high and too near existing houses.

Amersham Town Council's Davida Allen, who spoke at the meeting, told committee members: "Far greater demands have been put on these roads with no highway improvements. The [council] report fails to give a clear view of current usage and fails to suggest a radical solution. It can be nose to tail all day.

"We have a convergence of two schools, a college, an adult learning centre, frequent buses and a housing estate. To deliver this site, a radical solution must be approved. In the view of Amersham Town Council, tinkering isn't enough to deliver this site safely for dense housing."

Committee member Nigel Shepherd said: "It's not that big a site on which we are planning to have 35 dwellings - 24 houses, nine flats, two maisonettes and I'm tempted to say, at this time of year, a partridge in a pear tree.

"There have been 38 objections and they cover almost everything I can think of. The nature of them is the overbearing nature, loss of privacy, density, parking and, above all else, access.

"There were ten reasons for refusal, now up to 11 - that must come fairly close to some sort of record.

"I'm not against development on this site in principle but it has to be the right sort of development. This is about 180 degrees out."

Nobody from developer Croudace Homes, which submitted the plans, was present at the meeting.