A DISTRICT-WIDE plea has been launched for funds to help avert the threat of thousands of extra homes for Tandridge.
A crucial appeal hearing, beginning on June 17, will look at claims that 500 houses need to be built in the district each year – far more than Tandridge District Council is planning for.
At the four-day public inquiry at the council's Oxted offices, a planning inspector will consider the housing requirement for the whole district.
The hearing will centre on the council's refusal of planning permission last year for two alternative housing schemes in Whyteleafe Road, Caterham.
One reason for the council's rejection was that the developments would add to the current oversupply of housing.
But the applicants Outwood-based Village Development contend that Tandridge needs many more homes. It says the council's Core Strategy, which allows for 125 extra dwellings in the district each year, makes woefully inadequate provision.
The Core Strategy is currently under review by the council.
A planning report the development company has commissioned for the hearing says: "To meet the housing pressures associated with the most recent demographic projections would require just over 500 homes per annum."
This is opposed by the Oxted and Limpsfield Residents' Group.
It is seeking to employ a planning expert to represent them at the inquiry. The group's chairman Catherine Sayer said: "The council is already delivering more than double the number of homes set down in the Core Strategy.
"We are hoping a lot of people will get behind the appeal because the inquiry affects everyone in Tandridge."
Paul Newdick, the council's head of planning policy, said: "If Village Developments are successful in challenging the council's current (housing) requirement, it will be open season for developers on sites all across the district, green belt sites included.
"If that happened we think it would make a mockery of localism, of Neighbourhood Plans and of the provisions of the Government's new planning rules, which state how important it is that communities are consulted and have input into drawing up a Local Plan."
For information on the residents' campaign visit www.oxted limpsfieldresidents.co.uk
