The expanded port would take up 69 hectares of wildlife habitat

Hutchison Ports is planning to invest about �300m to turn Harwich into one of the biggest container ports in the UK, second only to Felixstowe in Suffolk.

Now the company has applied to create a new coastal habitat south of its proposed super-harbour at Bathside Bay.

But opponents of the plan, members of the group Residents Against Port Expansion, say the site would become polluted by the new port.

Spokeswoman Jenni Meredith said it is not just the pollution and erosion in the area which makes it unsuitable.

The public does not have access to the site that is being lost. It is fenced off land and privately-owned Hutchison Ports corporate affairs manager Paul Davey

"Apart from the aspects of serious environmental worries, there's also the aspect that it's not really compensating anybody who lives in the Bathside Bay area at all.

"We've got an open space amenity here at the moment.

"They're not going to put it close enough for us to walk over it and conduct our leisure pursuits as we do at the moment, so we're missing out again really."

Hutchison Ports, which also operates Felixstowe, says it has a responsibility to develop Bathside Bay with full regard to the environment.

Paul Davey, corporate affairs manager, said the site being offered in compensation was to provide a habitat for wildlife.

"In fact, the public does not have access to the site that is being lost. It is fenced off land and privately-owned," he said

Mr Davey added that at 130 hectares, the new coastal habitat was almost twice the size of the 69-hectare site which would go with the expansion.

He said Hutchison Ports had an option on the land which is currently farmed.