Ten years ago this week, Alton witnessed one of the most painful chapters in its long struggle to preserve its green spaces.

In a single evening, East Hampshire District Council’s planning committee gave the go-ahead for 58 more acres of farmland to be lost to development, a decision that left the town reeling.

The meeting at Penns Place in Petersfield, relocated from Alton and overseen by police following claims of aggressive behaviour at an earlier gathering, was defined by a somber resignation.

Unlike the fiery protests of February 4, this time, campaigners sensed the inevitability of defeat.

Despite valiant efforts, the outline applications for 275 homes at Cadnam Farm (stretching between Gilbert White Way and Upper Anstey Lane) and 180 at Will Hall Farm (off the Basingstoke Road and Brick Kiln Lane) were waved through by councillors, cementing Alton’s transformation in the name of housing targets.

It was the culmination of a relentless wave of approvals that had begun just weeks earlier with the controversial South Alton Plan.

That scheme alone saw 91 acres of greenfield land sacrificed for 529 new homes, sparking outcry from residents and calls for intervention from the Secretary of State.

Alton and District Residents’ Association joined forces with Alton Town Council in an eleventh-hour bid to challenge the decision, arguing that the town’s emerging Neighbourhood Plan had been ignored.

But their pleas fell on deaf ears, as officials defended the developments as necessary to maintain the region’s housing supply buffer.

For many, that bleak February marked the moment Alton’s battle against overdevelopment was lost.

And yet, a decade on, there was at least one silver lining in the pages of the February 20, 2015, Alton Herald as readers were encouraged to ‘See new sports centre plans’.

A decade on, the centre now stands as a thriving community hub - proof that change, managed well, can bring genuine benefits.