Residents have criticised a proposed expansion of the Ham Close estate, arguing it will reduce the density of social housing and ‘poor transport links’ will not support an additional 200 homes.

Over the past two years Richmond Housing Partnership (RHP) and Richmond Council have worked with residents to design the redevelopment of the area in which there are currently 192 housing association homes.

The first in a series of consultations was on the financial viability of the project, which was followed by workshops on transport infrastructure, open space and landscaping.

Resident Sean Parsons said the density of social housing is 75 per cent, but this would fall ‘considerably’ if RHP builds 400 homes to replace the current 192.

He said: “The current density is 192 units.

“About 25 per cent of those are leasehold so there are 75 per cent social housing units.

“Of the new 400 or 500 units, there will be no more than 140 social housing units meaning that the density of social housing will diminish considerably from 75 per cent to 30 per cent.”

“The entire project is a huge money-making scheme by RHP. The local infrastructure cannot support this density.”

Richmond Council countered by saying a commitment has been made to ensure at least one-third of the added homes will be ‘affordable homes’, meaning the borough’s stock of affordable properties will increase.

A Richmond Council spokesman said: “These additional homes will be a mixture of shared ownership and affordable housing for rent.

“Affordable housing includes social housing for rent, housing for rent at below market rates and shared ownership properties.”

Councillor Penelope Frost said she is unconvinced by RHP’s explanation of the financial viability of the project, while resident Sean Parsons said neighbours have since moved out due to uncertainty around the project.

But RHP said the workshops were ‘very successful’ with residents showing a lot of interest, and transport viability studies are being undertaken by ‘independent experts’.

Cllr Frost said: “It is hard to know what the constraints and opportunities are until we get concrete facts. RHP has not been as clear as it might have been – we’re still not sure what we’re looking at here.

“It’s too great a density; they have to either spread out quite far on the ground or they have to build up. The footprint will be greater or higher.

“They’ve got to think about transport, too – and transport infrastructure is pretty poor at the moment.”

Resident Dzenko Dzenkov echoed this, saying the roads ‘won’t take the strain’, and public transport to Twickenham, Richmond and Kingston is ‘not good enough’.