CAMPAIGNERS opposed to plans to build 4,000 houses on fields north of Dorchester are organising a protest march through the town centre this weekend.

The demonstration is being organised by the group Save the Area North of Dorchester (STAND) which says Dorset Council's Local Plan envisages a massive new development in open countryside with homes that will 'blight the environment and change the character of the county town for good'.

STAND is inviting the public to meet at Maumbury Rings at 10am on Saturday, April 2 and march through the town centre.

Jane Ashdown, who chairs the group, said: “These fields are the green lungs of Dorchester. The landscape is of huge historical, environmental, and cultural significance. Dorset Council needs to rethink the Local Plan so that it gives us the homes we need rather than chasing government housing targets.”

The plan proposes building a total of 39,000 houses across Dorset over the next 17 years.

Jane Ashdown said of Saturday's event: “All are welcome. Anyone who cares about the environment and the future of the county town should think seriously about making their voices heard."

As well as music and speeches there will also be what is known as a 'Skimmity ride' - a rural tradition intended to poke fun or embarrass people who have transgressed in some way, with effigies of the offenders strapped to a donkey and paraded through a community as onlookers bang saucepans.

Such a ride features in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge and STAND is recreating a ride to draw attention to a plan which they say will 'desecrate' the countryside which inspired so much of Hardy’s writing. Effigies of a property developer and a town planner will feature in Saturday’s march.

* The Dorset Council Local Plan outlines the strategy for ensuring the growth that the area needs happens in the right places and that it is of the right character and quality, while protecting the natural environment and acting on climate change.

Council leader Cllr Spencer Flower has urged Housing Secretary Michael Gove to consider allowing Dorset to pilot a radically different approach to local plan making which focuses on the needs of the area, and is not just about chasing housing targets. He also wants a two year extension to give more time for the new plan to be developed.