MeophamHundreds of residents in attended a public meeting to over to build hundreds of houses on belt land.

Council is consulting on a planning blueprint for the area for the next 20 years.

Last month people in , near , marched through the village to demonstrate over the proposals.

But on Thursday at the meeting in Gravesend councillors stuck to their plans to build 5,200 homes.

, who was on the march, said: “Once you give up the green belt it's gone forever. We certainly don't seem to need the 5,200 dwellings that are being proposed by any yard stick.”

The deputy leader of Gravesham Council, Lee Croxton, said the authority was in a “catch 22 situation”.

“We've the government saying we must build houses, we've developers who don't want to build houses [on brown sites] and we've got rising unemployment,” he said.