Homelessness charities and housing campaigners are in agreement - the nation is in the grip of a housing crisis, with millions living in overcrowded, dangerous, unstable or unaffordable accommodation.

The solution is widely agreed too: as a country we need to build more homes. The problem is agreeing where to put them, as avowedly pro-housing reporter Rhys Griffiths found on a visit to the village of Adisham...

Walking into the centre of Adisham during the golden hour before sunset, when the light takes an already bucolic setting and makes it achingly beautiful, it is easy to see why villagers cherish this community nestled in the Kent Downs.

It is enough to spark daydreams of a move to the countryside, all muddy boots and log fires, with the beauty of the Garden of England right on your doorstep.

A reverie I soon snap out of when Rightmove reveals just four properties for sale in the village, the cheapest a snip at just £625,000.

Not for me, then, and probably not for any 20-something locals starting out in life, growing a career and maybe a family, and hoping one day to get a foot on the housing ladder.

I have come to Adisham, a village of about 300 people near Canterbury, to meet a group of locals who are in bitter opposition to plans for thousands of new homes which they fear could be built right on their doorstep.

The so-called Cooting Farm garden community has been included in the Canterbury City Council draft local plan - and it is fair to say the mood locally is mutinous.

"It's just been parachuted in and will cause huge devastation at every level," says David Conder, who is an active member of the Conserve Adisham's Rural Environment (CARE) group fighting the plans.

"Not just in little Adisham, but the whole of east Kent, the infrastructure is creaking.

"And they claim that they need to do it to meet government housing figures. With all due respect, that is now rubbish.

"Central government have made it clear that those figures are advisory only."

"The community is going to be swamped and destroyed by the new development..."

For a long time the government remained wedded to a target of building 300,000 new homes every year, but rebellion among backbenchers and activists has now seen this diluted to be more of an ambition than a diktat from Whitehall.

Advisory or mandatory, it is easy to see why people in Adisham were shocked to see more than 3,000 homes - 1% of that national annual target - earmarked for their corner of the county.

Business owner Kieran Bevan was straight to the point about what such a significant development, in countryside between Adisham and Aylesham, would mean for their village.

"It's a rural community and we - the heart of the community - are very proud of that, but the community is going to be swamped and destroyed by the new development," he said.

Despite losing many local amenities in recent decades with the closure of shops and pubs, the draft local plan classifies Adisham as a "local service centre" - the third tier of settlement in the district, one above a simple "village".

Do locals feel the existence of a railway station at the edge of the community has proved a misfortune in elevating the village's status in terms of existing infrastructure?

"That's one of the things we raised with the officials that have come down," Mr Bevan said, as others chuckled with weary acknowledgement.

"They are basing it on the railway station, but the problem with that is it's on completely the wrong line.

"The line here, even if you increase the number of trains, is going to Canterbury and its pretty hard to get anywhere else.

"They're going to be going on the high speed and driving to Ashford."

Dani Ottey, whose home at Cooting Farm has - to her shock and annoyance - given its name to the scheme, argues it is worse than Adisham itself being targeted for development.

The draft local plan states any new homes will be separate and distinct from Adisham itself, so in fact she feels it is her hamlet of four houses which is set to be transformed into a small town.

"What they say is that it's in Cooting," she said.

"They go to great length in the plan to say they'll keep it separate from Adisham. So actually it's even worse than that.

"They say there will be a clear, green line between us, so they're not doing it to Adisham, they are doing it to Cooting."

"These are not the people of Adisham who are going to buy these houses, they are not even the people of Aylesham, they're the people of London..."

Tentatively declaring my own pro-housing views, I risk introducing an air of tension into our hour-long conversation over tea and biscuits.

Don't houses have to go somewhere if we are to have any hope of solving the housing crisis and giving younger generations the chance to live in the communities where they have grown up?

"We can't just say, 'I want to live there so I'm going to trash it'," Ms Ottey said.

"Secondly, they don't live here. It's an empty field. These are not the people of Adisham who are going to buy these houses, they are not even the people of Aylesham, they're the people of London."

I am invited by Mr Conder to join the debate with more gusto, but politely decline the opportunity to mount a pro-development soapbox when here to listen to the thoughts of those directly affected by the plans.

It is understandable that people are sceptical of huge schemes to plonk thousands of new homes on their doorstep, and their concerns are valid and well-argued.

But surely it will be nigh on impossible to find any community, urban or rural, which will actively welcome large-scale housebuilding?

"Nobody wants to look out at what is currently a green space and see a house," Liberal Democrat city councillor Mike Sole admitted.

"That's just the nature of things. But here is a special case because this is just a unique community and a unique landscape here that is under threat.

"The other areas that are being developed do not have the same level of quality."

Wherever new homes do go, what is not in doubt is the pressing need for the right accommodation to alleviate the pressure on Kent's housing stock.

In October KentOnline reported that almost 20,000 people were still waiting to be rehomed by local authorities across the county, with some families living in cramped conditions for more than two years while they wait for the right property to become available.

The area with the highest number of people on the waiting list was Canterbury, with 2,812 people in line to be found accommodation by the local authority.

According to polling carried out by Ipsos last summer, seven in 10 Brits think there is a national housing crisis, with 49% of the view that there is one local to them.

The problem is not limited to urban areas either, where rough sleeping can be a very visible reminder of the issue of homelessness, partially driven by affordability and access to appropriate housing stock.

"Nobody wants a new housing estate next to them, but this is more than people in Adisham being nimbys..."

Last year researchers at the University of Kent asked organisations dealing with the housing crisis in rural areas about their experience, and 88% of respondents said they believe homelessness had increased in their area in the previous 12 months.

Although everyone I spoke to in Adisham expressed a desire for appropriate levels of housebuilding to meet any genuine local demand, they expressed profound anger at what they see as a lack of understanding and fair warning from the leadership of the city council about the vision for Cooting Farm.

Cllr Sole said: "As a city councillor I only knew about this 24 hours before the general public did. It was all formed in secrecy by the cabinet with assistance from officers.

"This came out of nowhere. It's pretty clear to me that the only reason they want to do it is to get money from developers to fund the bypass and to fund the zoning scheme in Canterbury.

"It's all about getting money from developers to with these big infrastructure projects.

"Thousands of hours have been spent by so many hard-working and determined people in the community fighting this - it has just got to be chucked out.

"Nobody wants a new housing estate next to them, but this is more than people in Adisham being nimbys. That's not what it's about.

"It's farmed at the moment and those that are farming it don't want to see houses on it."

Such was the shock at the proposal when the draft local plan was revealed, one family who farm land included in the scheme were said to have been left "sickened" when they discovered what was being planned.

Judith Hawarden said she only learned her land, which the family has farmed for generations, had been included when she saw the news on social media.

"I only found out when I saw it on Facebook," Mrs Hawarden said at the time.

"I was so cross. I can understand the shock people felt when they saw the drawings of a proposed new town in the village.

"Seeing the farmland had been submitted as a potential development site was, and is, sickening. I immediately instructed for it to be removed, and contacted the council and said there must have been a huge misunderstanding.

"We're farmers through and through, and our only intention is to farm."

Following my visit to Adisham, I asked Canterbury City Council's Conservative leader Ben Fitter-Harding about the furore over his draft local plan and the housing developments proposed within it.

"We had over 2,000 consultation responses," he said.

"It's been massive and I'm proud of that because it means that we got out there and we did get people involved, we did get people engaged.

"I never want people to be worried. I never want people to be upset or fear for the places that they love.

"So I need them to believe that the council's listening and under my leadership it has listened already and will continue to.

"Ultimately we need a good sound plan - without a plan development can happen ad hoc pretty much anywhere. So I know these are really difficult choices, but looking at the whole district, the qualities of it and the beautiful spaces we've got, the risk of not having a plan for us is massive."

"I get emails saying 'there's nowhere for my children to live, there's nowhere for my grandchildren to live...'"

Cllr Fitter-Harding says he is determined to ensure housebuilding is of the highest quality, and that his authority can deliver the homes that the next generation needs.

He said: "I get emails saying 'there's nowhere for my children to live, there's nowhere for my grandchildren to live'.

"They're saying there's nowhere affordable for the next generation to live, they're going to have to move away.

"That's not good. We have to be able to grow, we have to do better.

"Large developments are better because they are more sustainable, because they bring the infrastructure with them.

"If you bolt on 100 houses here and 100 houses there you don't get anything for that. You don't get the new school, you don't get the GP surgery, you don't get the new road.

"I try and help people who are 'just no, never, no' understand that we are growing - people need somewhere to live, where they can afford to live.

"I believe that growth and economic prosperity is how we all become better, how we all have a better quality of life. So we have to build somewhere, people need houses."

The group campaigning against the proposed Cooting Farm development say there has been a massive response from the village to the draft local plan consultation, which has now closed.

They just hope their voices are heard.

"There has been a huge community drive to take part in the consultation on this," Cllr Sole said.

"There have been drop-in centres organised at the village hall. Hundreds of people I would think from the village had taken part in this.

"The village has raised its voice - it has put in really, really detailed responses to the conversation.

"This isn't just like, 'I don't want houses here,' these are really detailed professional arguments.

"So what we want is for people to read those and listen to them and not just ignore them, because they are strong, powerful voices that should be listened to.

"And if they're not, well, we've got no democracy at all in this country."