A number of Kent MPs have swung behind a bid to block the government from imposing "top-down" housebuilding targets, saying it should be up to local councils to decide numbers.

Six Conservatives with seats in the county have signed an amendment to The Levelling up and Regeneration Bill currently before Parliament.

The amendment states both mandatory targets and five-year land supply rule should be prohibited.

It also says any government planning policy need only be considered as advisory rather than compulsory when targets for councils are considered.

The amendment states: “Accordingly, such targets should not be taken into account in determining planning applications.”

The Kent MPs who have signed the amendment are: Damian Green (Ashford), Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford), Rehman Chishti (Gillingham), Gordon Henderson ( Sittingbourne and Sheppey), Adam Holloway (Gravesham) and Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood).

The issue of housebuilding targets has been a divisive one for the Conservative party for many years. Several Kent MPs have spoken out against the government’s approach on the grounds that it would be environmentally damaging and sacrifice swathes of green belt land.

Successive party leaders have faced a revolt over any attempt to relax planning policy, most recently during Liz Truss' short-lived premiership.

She had advocated investment zones in which housebuilding plans would be granted permission automatically without going through the normal planning process.

Mr Green says the government’s yearly target for 300,000 homes would not mean it would be easier for first-time buyers.

“I do not believe that this would have a significant effect on the affordability of homes at the bottom of the housing ladder, especially as the geographical distribution of the new homes would be absolutely vital in determining that price," he says.

In an article for Conservative Home, he criticises developers who secured permission but did not build the houses needed.

“So permission should be time-limited or become increasingly and painfully expensive over time if the option to build is not exercised," he writes.

"If we instituted this measure, it would do more to help young people become homeowners than anything proposed by the target-obsessed.”

He goes on to say that variations in property prices made the case for “local decisions, expressed in local plans, about the scale of development needed in each area”.

The Levelling Up minister Michael Gove recently said the government would stick by its target for 300,000 new homes a year so long as they were in the right place.

He said: “What we do need is a fair way of allocating housing need that takes into account change the population.”