RESIDENTS battling to stop a controversial 50-home development in Bricket Wood are vowing to continue their fight, even though their hopes were further rocked on Wednesday night.

Angry campaigners are maintaining that plans to build the houses on Green Belt land at the Building Research Establishment (BRE), in Bucknalls Lane, will cause 'traffic chaos'.

And they are refusing to throw in the towel, despite St Albans district councillors admitting on Wednesday that they could do nothing to turn down the plans.

Residents are now hoping the Secretary of State will call in the application and hold an inquiry.

Speaking after the meeting of the council's planning committee, Friends of Bucknalls Drive chairman Bob Slaney said: 'This whole thing is extremely disappointing, but it's not all over yet.

'What we must now do is get all residents to write to the Secretary of State and urge him to call in this application as, at a public inquiry, people would have the opportunity to say just what a damaging effect these homes would have.

'What me must be careful of now is apathy as we can still stop this development.'

Speaking at the meeting, Councillor Gordon Myland, who has been fighting the plans from the start, said: 'Bucknalls Drive is a backbone on which more and more ribs have been added. So how it can be said there will not be an unacceptable amount of traffic coming down Mount Pleasant Lane is beyond me.'

Campaigners were recently given hope when it was revealed that a corner of the BRE site is home to Great Crested Newts, an endangered species.

But residents' hopes were dashed when they were told the protected species are not found where the houses would be built.

Moves to stop the houses being built were abandoned by the district council earlier this year after it decided not to fight a planning inquiry into an appeal which was lodged by the BRE.

The council had originally refused permission for the scheme last June because the planning committee believed traffic from the new homes would use Bucknalls Drive.

It wanted a road to be built to take traffic on to the other side of the research station, but Hertfordshire County Council's highways engineers did not support the councillors.