Maidstone is “being treated like a former pit village” by a Government determined to impose massive development on the county town of Kent.

That was the view of Cllr Tony Harwood(Lib Dem), who declared Labour’s latest re-writing of the South East Plan “disgraceful”.

The document, which will determine the way the South East grows over the next 20 years, had already been through a public consultation and an examination by planning inspectors, but now new revisions have been imposed by the Government, including increasing Maidstone’s housing quota from 10,080 new homes to 11,080, and changing the wording to make the figure a “minimum” rather than a “target”.

There was cross-party condemnation of the changes at a meeting of a backbench committee charged with advising the council’s cabinet on what response it should make to the Government.

Cllr Paulina Stockell (Con) said: “It’s a cheat. We should be fighting for what was already agreed and consulted on in public." She said a draft response prepared by officers was “not robust enough".

Cllr Harwood warned that there would soon be no rural wards left in Maidstone, but suggested the council had been partly to blame for volunteering in the initial round to take extra homes in its bid for growth point status.

He said: “If you stick your head above the parapet, you are likely to get it shot off.”

Councillors were fearful that a warning that the South East Plan would be further revised was a hint that Maidstone would yet be asked to take still more houses, and they were critical that policies that only allowed sustainable development and that protected the strategic gaps around the town were being abolished.

Cllr Harwood said the plan would mean the “absolute destruction of the quality of life for Maidstone’s residents.”

Cllr Clive English considered the scrapping of the strategic gaps to be “the ultimate insult” and advocated working with the region’s other district councils to oppose the Government’s revisions.

Cllr Richard Lusty (Con) called for the council’s response to be revised and strengthened and brought back for approval by the committee before it went to cabinet members to decide on. He said otherwise it would be like “sticking two fingers up to the ordinary members of this council.”

But officers advised that there was not time, since the report as written had already been placed on the agenda for the next cabinet meeting which takes place tomorrow. However, they pointed out that Cllr Chris Garland, the Conservative leader of the council, was in the audience and had no doubt heard the committee’s views.