AN IDEA to double the size of Winchester with a new garden suburb has been branded as “totally unrealistic” by a civic campaigner.

David Rudlin, an urban designer, won the £250,000 Wolfson prize for his idea that the national housing crisis could be tackled by extending towns into the greenbelt.

Under his proposal Winchester would double from 40,000 to 80,000 over the next 30 years.

But Patrick Davies, chairman of the policy committee of the City of Winchester Trust, said: “It is totally unrealistic. No-one will take it very seriously. It was an academic exercise and is a non-starter.”

Mr Rudlin, director of URBED (Urbanism Environment Design) said: “We don’t have any specific plans for Winchester. We put a map into our essay, almost as an afterthought identifying historic cities, one of which was Winchester.

“I don’t know Winchester well. However, the point we are making is that rather than try to build new towns in the countryside, or allow existing settlements to sprawl, we should concentrate growth in well-planned extensions to existing attractive popular towns that already have a range of facilities.

“Every place is different and has a different set of constraints so we wouldn’t go as far as putting numbers on this, but I’m sure the argument could be applied to Winchester.”