AN action group set up to fight a large housing development is threatening to call in police after up to 20 residents’ objections on a council planning website were mysteriously changed to “neutral” comments last week.

The Stop the Morley Carr Farm Action Group, which is campaigning against an application to build 350 homes on farmland on the edge of Yarm, near Stockton, said about 20 of the 237 objections were changed from Thursday onwards.

When The Northern Echo contacted Stockton Borough Council yesterday, the status of the comments were quickly changed back to “objections”.

Peter Horner, of the action group, said the residents concerned were furious. He made a complaint to the council and is now threatening to call in police.

Taylor Wimpey wants to build the homes on land to the west of Yarm and applied for planning permission earlier this year. The decision on whether to grant planning permission is expected to be made at a Stockton council planning meeting next month.

A council spokeswoman said: “Stockton council takes consultation with residents very seriously and any comments received are fully considered.

“Correspondence received in relation to planning applications which expresses concerns or worries about a particular proposal are not taken as objections and this position is made clear in the consultation letter sent out to residents, which states ‘Please note that letters of concern are not taken as objections to the proposal’.

“Having further considered the content of the letters raised, while they do not state an objection it is considered that the degree of concern is such that they can reasonably be taken as objections and have now been shown as such on the public access website.

“All comments received are fully considered in the determination of all planning applications,” said a council spokesperson.

However, Mr Horner said many of the comments which had their status changed had been on the website for almost two months before the change.

He said the action group had checked other planning applications over the weekend and no other complainants had seen the status of their comments changed.

“Why is it just Morley Carr Farm?” he said. “They claim that some of the comments could have been taken as neutral but when you register a comment on the website you have to click whether it is an objection, in support, or neutral and most of the people who had their comments changed had clicked on the ‘object’ option.”

He said the group was looking at calling in the police to investigate the irregularities.