Fears that new homes on an industrial estate could ‘fundamentally change’ a nearby village have been raised by neighbours.

Plans to build 30 new homes in converted office buildings on the Grove Business Park near While Waltham have been given the go-ahead by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

But some villagers wrote to the council to object – saying other recently approved plans to build homes at the business park mean 124 new homes on total could be built.

In identical letters of objection Piers Hollier, Rachel Hollier and James Ford said: “Taken together, these four developments potentially provide an additional 124 dwellings and fundamentally change the nature of the village.”

The Royal Borough approved two separate planning applications for 15 homes in the Beechwood office building and five flats in Ashwood house on the business park on Thursday June 27. It also approved plans for ten home sin the Oakwood building on June 21.

The developer Shanly Homes applied for confirmation that it had ‘prior approval’ to convert the offices into homes under ‘permitted development’ rights in planning law.

This is when a developer doesn’t need to apply for full planning permission. It means the council can only consider certain things such as the space inside the proposed homes or the impact of the new homes on local roads.

But council officers said under these ‘light touch’ rules they couldn’t consider the impact of the new homes on the character of the village.