NEIGHBOURS are opposing the latest in a series of developments that they claim have snowballed to leave their area unrecognizable.

Last year 52 bedroom Treetops Care Home in Station Road, Epping, applied to demolish a garage and store shed and build a four storey extension, providing 16 extra residential care rooms.

This followed successful applications in recent years to construct a single storey extension to the home and retain 10 extra parking spaces that had been built on the site.

Last year Higgins Homes built a 13 bedroom block of flats next to the care home.

Residents opposed Treetop's plans, arguing that the extension would marr the appearance of the neighbourhood and loom over nearby properties.

Treetops have recently resubmitted revised plans for the site removing four of the rooms, but residents claim that they do little to alleviate their concerns.

Ken Pryor, 57, has lived in Ambleside, behind the site of the development, for 29 years.

He said: “It is like development by stealth here.

“They have added little bits here and little bits there over the years, it is an incremental process.

“Now we have this potentially monstrous great building just over our hedge and headlights from the car park flashing into our bedroom.

“If they can allow this new extension then, quite frankly, they can allow anything round here.

“I would like to see councillors police these kind of modifications more carefully or more areas like ours will be dominated by these flat-roofed multi-storey buildings.”

His neighbour, Lesley Goode, 66, agreed.

She said: “I just hope they keep the trees up bordering our property and the care home, otherwise this new extension will be a complete eyesore.

“The place just seems to have grown and grown.”

The developer’s agent, Mathew Barker, said: “The development next door to Treetops and the extension to the care home are completely separate issues.

“The extension is right not only because it will create jobs but because there is a drastic need for places where people can be cared for in their old age.

“Issues people had about the size and appearance of the development have been addressed in the new plans, which have been recommended for approval by the council committee.”