CHAMPION hurdler Sally Gunnell has tried to reassure residents over a temporary 1,300-pitch caravan site set to open at the farm where she grew up.

The Gunnell family is setting up the site at Old Farm in Green Lane, off Chigwell High Road, with the Caravan Club between July and September next year, to provide a cheaper alternative to hotels for people watching the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Some of the farm’s neighbours said they were angry at not being formally consulted over the plans and were worried about the site causing gridlock on the area’s roads.

But Mrs Gunnell, whose parents still own the farm, said: “It’s all going to be well-organised. My mum and dad had a lot of people approaching them to do car parking and all sorts of things.

“They wanted to get the right people and someone like the Caravan Club was willing to do all the council stuff. It’s such a respectable company.

“There should not be a lot of cars there all the time. It’s only for a few weeks and it’s nothing we would probably do again in our lives.”

Caravans will be towed to and from the farm through a new entrance that will be created next to the new Grange Farm roundabout on the High Road.

A temporary road will run through the farm to the camp site and cars will leave via a one-way system along Vicarage Lane.

Plans are also in place for a shuttle bus to take campers to and from tube stations so they can get to the Olympic stadia.

Mrs Gunnell said she and her family would be staying on the farm for most of the Olympics, when she will be working as an ambassador for the British Olympic Association.

“It will be nice to be up in that area for a while,” she said. “I have happy memories of the farm. I would run up the field to see my dad. People ask what got me into running and I think a lot of it was having that outdoor life.”