UP TO 600 homes could be heading for Broughton within three years, The Chronicle can reveal.

The firm which owns Broughton Shopping Park, Development Securities Plc, has lodged an application with Flintshire for the project.

The London-based company has also agreed to sell the land once planning permission has been granted to building giant Westbury Homes.

The scale of the development, which lies to the south of the retail park, is far from finalised. However, under Flintshire's draft Unitary Development Plan (UDP) a plot of this size, 28 acres, means a minimum of 247 houses would be built.

But one Government official told The Chronicle the figure being looked at is about 600.

Either way, under the UDP at least 30% of the number of homes built would have to be affordable housing - in this case between 74 and 180.

A spokeswoman for Flintshire said the application cannot be determined until the draft UDP allocation of land for housing in Broughton has been finalised.

She said: 'There is an outline application at Broughton for approximately 350 houses near to an existing housing development. This is not part of Warren Hall, which is a separate application for business development.'

In May 2002 Development Securities submitted an application for a 350,000sq ft business park on the site, which was recently replaced by this residential planning application.

Development Securities also confirmed it had entered into an agreement to sell the 28 acres to Westbury Homes Ltd, conditional on achieving satisfactory out-line planning consent for residential use.

The chairman of Development Securities PLC, Roy Dantzic, said: 'We have made encour-aging progress with both the residential and retail schemes under consideration at Broughton.

'In June 2004 we submitted a joint planning application for a new 90,000sq ft Marks & Spencer store and a 26,600sq ft extension for Tesco, together with a new retail parade of shops and additional car parking, landscaping, road improvements, cycle routes and footpaths.

'Following the redesignation by the local authority in their 2003 draft Unitary Development Plan of a further 27.7 acres of our land as suitable for housing, we withdrew our existing planning application for a 350,000sq ft business park and submitted a planning application in respect of this land for residential use.

'While we are reasonably confident that planning permission for the residential component can be secured within the next 12 months, the process may not be completed by the end of this financial year.

'The retail application is inherently more complex and we would not wish, at this early stage, to estimate a timeframe within which planning could be achieved.'

A spokeswoman for Westbury Homes, the biggest house developer in South Wales and other areas of the UK, confirmed it has a contract with Development Securities.

She said: 'We have got a planning application for 27 acres for the site and we are waiting for the outcome on that.

'We have been actively involving the local community in making our plans known.'