Angry Headcorn residents are taking to the streets tomorrow to protest at plans to swamp their village with new housing.

More than 500 villagers have signed a petition condemning “irresponsible building and urbanisation” of their village, as proposed in Maidstone council’s draft Local Plan proposals.

Many of them intend to picket the Town Hall from 6pm as councillors arrive for a meeting tomorrow night.

Their petition will be presented inside the chamber by Cllr Christine Edwards-Daem, the UKIP councillor who represents Park Wood ward, but who lives in Mill Bank, Headcorn.

Villagers in Lenham are equally upset. Independent Cllr Janetta Sams is presentating a petition on their behalf signed by 1,500 people opposed to the council’s housing proposals for the village.

The petition states: “We believe that, what to all intent and purposes is creating another village size development within the parish, would have a devastating effect on the local community.”

Council leader Annabelle Blackmore (Con) said the Local Plan was a very emotional subject for a lot of people.

She said the council’s housing need figure - currently 18,600 for the next Local Plan period - was “objectively assessed” and “not something we can change.”

She said: “If it turns out that number of homes are not needed, they will not be built, but we have to plan for them.”

She acknowledged that there were difficulties with many sites.

She said: “Headcorn has a particular problem with sewage. But although Southern Water always says the system is at capacity, it never objects to an application.

“That makes it very difficult for the council to refuse permission on those grounds.”

The council received 2,000 individual responses to its public consultation on the Local Plan earlier this year.

She said that she and her cabinet colleagues and planning officers had reviewed all the proposed development sites in the light of the representations, but she would not disclose whether any would now be dropped as a consequence.

She said: “We need to hold discussions with the parish councils first.”

At the moment, the council is on schedule to put its final draft of the plan out to public consultation in February.