HUNDREDS of homes are being pulled out of Basildon’s future housing plan.

Basildon Council has agreed to remove the green belt site near Wash Road in Noak’s Bridge which had been earmarked for 300 homes.

It is the second potential 300 home site to be removed from the council’s plan meaning the council still has to pick potential sites for thousands more homes.

Councillor Richard Moore, chairman of the planning and infrastructure committee, said: “This area is considered to make a very strong contribution to the green belt purposes.

“Any development will be classed as sprawl and increase the risk of coalescence and cause significant harm to the countryside due to the open nature of the site.

“This site is very open and comprises of a wide expanse of countryside which would be lost if development was to proceed.”

Labour leader councillor Adele Brown said: “What is more important? The economic growth and development of Basildon or this piece of green belt land, it’ll come as no surprise to this committee whatsoever that I think our unmet housing need is far more important.”

The decision means 600 homes have been pulled from the borough’s housing plan in the past two weeks, increasing the shortfall from 1,200 to 1,800.

The council needs to deliver a Local Plan by January 24 with a housing allocation of 20,000.

If they fail to meet that deadline they are likely to face intervention from the Secretary of State and that could result in the future of the borough’s housing being decided by civil servants in London.

A day before the meeting, the government published new housing guidelines which state that Basildon’s target will increase to 21,400 if the January deadline is not met.

The target could rise again in September when there will be another review.

Mr Moore dismissed concerns over the shortfall saying, “whatever we do tonight we still have an unmet need”.

Conservative councillor Stephen Hillier said: “We have to recognise the Government’s thrust is to have housing numbers. We can only do the best we can in providing the numbers that are there unless we are prepared to concrete over the whole of the borough.”