A billionaire Australian businessman has provoked anger from the residents of a Sussex village after announcing plans to build a £20 million polo centre deep in the English countryside.

James Packer, son of the late media mogul Kerry Packer, told the small community of Selham, West Sussex, that he intends to plough up prime agricultural land currently used by dairy cattle and turn the farmland into a British base for his polo team, Ellerston.

The proposal was made 20 years after his father caused a similar uproar by converting farmland into polo pitches near the village.

Local people fear that the winding, single-track roads used to reach the village will soon be clogged with heavy lorries destroying the peace of the historic backwater. The village has just one pub, a duck pond, no shops and the 900-year-old church of St James.

Mr Packer, 42, inherited his father’s media interests on his death in December 2005 and is estimated to be worth £1.7 billion. He has built a global network of gambling interests and owns a stake in several British casinos.

But when Mr Packer’s representatives met council chiefs and villagers to discuss the plan, the reaction was hostile. Michael Ball, a long-time Selham resident, said: “The mood of the village is very unhappy.”

Another villager said: “A lot of people also feel extremely good agricultural land will have to be converted to huge great electrically heated polo fields which would be a terrible waste of the lovely English countryside.

“This village is the perfect peaceful retreat, way off the beaten track, and has been for hundreds of years. All that is under threat now.”

The row is reminiscent of the unrest that accompanied Kerry Packer’s determination to convert 98 acres of farmland into polo pitches for his private polo centre in the nearby village of Stedham in 1989.

Giant earthmovers worked 12 hours a day as the Packer fortune bankrolled the creation of some of the best polo pitches in the world for the entrepreneur after he got permission to go ahead with his scheme.

James Packer is petitioning Chichester District Council to give the development its approval.

If he succeeds, the existing buildings at the picturesque Manor Farm in Selham will be converted into pitches, stables, grooming and accommodation areas for his Ellerston team members, giving Packer’s players a permanent base. A huge dairy barn is earmarked for conversion to a clubhouse for the team.

The land is currently owned by Lord Cowdray and is part of his 17,000-acre estate; his agents claim that future milk production on the site is not viable because of EU restrictions.

Mr Packer, who married the singer and model Erica Baxter at a £4 million wedding on the French Riviera in 2007, has been a frequent visitor to the Cowdray Park polo lawns with his Ellerston team.

There has been some support for the scheme. Yolanda Carslaw, editor of Polo Times magazine, said: “Most people thought James had lost interest in the sport. He sold all the ponies he had in England and didn’t take part in the last polo season at all. People will be pleased to have him back on the scene.”

Mr Packer sold his ponies to Gonzalo Pieres Jr and Facundo Pieres, two champion Argentinian players who had ridden for his Ellerston team. Their father Gonzalo helped Kerry Packer to build his team and the two families collaborated in breeding the Packers’ ponies.

An opponent in the village said: “Many people feel we are just too small to accommodate a £20 million polo centre. But his father got his own way 20 years ago and money talks. We expect history to repeat itself.”

A spokesman for Chichester District Council said it was awaiting a formal development application from Mr Packer.

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