A council has been told it cannot submit any more evidence for a review of its housing plan after last-minute documents caused delays.

The public inquiry into Maidstone's Local Plan Review was halted after the borough council introduced a raft of new documents on the last day the hearings were held.

Inspector David Spencer has now accepted the additional documents but warned the council a line is now drawn under any further evidence.

The review is looking at the borough's development plan from 2011-2031 comprising 17,660 homes including garden villages at Lenham and Lidsing.

The extra information was submitted one lunchtime, prompting the inspector to postpone the hearings for six weeks while all the parties had a chance to read the extra documents.

After the inquiry, the parties opposed to garden village schemes were furious with the borough council.

Lenham Parish Council said it was “deeply concerned “ about such a late introduction of key information while Bredhurst campaigner Vanessa Jones labelled it as a "disgrace".

The hearing will now resume in November.

The additional evidence relates to habitat regulations, the duty to cooperate, on the delivery of and proposed rail station for the Heathlands garden village scheme in Lenham, on transport evidence for the garden village proposal at Lidsing and on the proposed Leeds-Langley bypass corridor.

Anyone who made representations on those subjects during the initial pre-hearing Regulation 19 consultation, is now invited to also submit comments on the council's new evidence.

Any statements should be submitted to louise@poservices.co.uk clearly stating the topic referred to.

Kate Hammond, chairman of Save Our Heathlands which is opposed to the Lenham garden village, said: “These latest revelations demonstrate either sheer incompetence by the council's senior officers for failing to append the huge array of additional evidence to their original submission to the inspector last month or a more sinister attempt to hold back key evidence until the very last moment.

"Whichever is the case, it is clear that someone should be held accountable within Maidstone council for the shambolic way in which they have conducted themselves during this Local Plan Review process.

"The patience of local residents has been wearing thin for some time now and it seems the same is true for the planning inspector."

The new documents can be found on the hearing website, but be warned some of the documents are very large, especially the Lidsing Transport Assessment and refined Heathlands Minerals Assessment.

The deadline for responses is 12noon on Thursday, October 20.

Any queries should be addressed to the hearings programme officer, Louise St John Howe, on 07789 486419.