Residents in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling have been personally urged to participate in the council's public consultation on its new Local Plan by the council leader Matt Boughton.

Cllr Boughton (Con) conducted an online web seminar on Monday which saw more than 100 residents take part.

He explained that the borough had at this stage no fixed ideas and wanted the views of residents on how best to proceed.

The first question to be answered was the general approach to development.

With the government requiring Tonbridge and Malling to build 15,894 homes by 2040 - a rate of 839 a year - Cllr Boughton said there were five ways the problem could be tackled.

The council had divided the borough into three categories - 1) urban areas, which included Tonbridge town, the Medway Gap, Kings Hill, Snodland and Walderslade, 2) rural service centres which included Hadlow, East Peckham, West Malling, Borough Green and Hildenborough, and 3) other rural settlements such as Birling, Platt, East Malling and Wateringbury.

Option one was to keep all development outside of the green belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty - but that would inevitably concentrate most development in Tonbridge and in the north east corner of the borough, around Kings Hill.

A second option was to focus development only around the identified urban areas, that would require using some green belt land.

A third option was to develop around both the identified urban areas and the rural service areas, but again this may involve using some green belt land.

Option four, which he described as "the spread it all out option", would place development much more widely across all settled areas, including urban areas, rural service areas and other rural settlements. It would maximise the re-use of previously-developed land, but could still need some green belt land.

The final approach would be to establish a new settlement (or settlements) somewhere in the borough (a garden village), which would lessen the need for development around the existing settlements.

Cllr Boughton said the council would welcome views of the approach to take, and also any arguments about whether settlements had been correctly classified as urban, rural service centres or otherwise.

To put the problem in scale, Cllr Boughton said that there were currently around 55,000 homes in the borough, so the government was looking to increase that by 29%.

There is an online questionnaire for residents to fill in, which can be accessed here.

Cllr Boughton said that he did not expect that every resident would fill in every one of the 50 questions, but any response would be helpful.

In addition, there were currently 291 sites put forward for potential development. Residents can comment on individual sites here.

The deadline for responses is November 2.

Cllr Boughton stressed that only a small number of the 291 sites would make it through to the final plan, which would not be drafted until August of next year.

The draft plan would also consider other issues such as where to place employment sites and whether the green belt, which already covered 71% of the borough, should be extended.

Cllr Boughton said although the figures were daunting, planning permission had already been granted for 3,300 homes, and another 3,100 were expected to arrive as "windfall" sites, when the closure of a business or pub, as yet unforeseen, gave the opportunity to redevelop a brownfield site for housing.

So the shortage of housing sites still to be found was actually around 9,200 homes.

Asked whether Tonbridge and Malling would be required to take up the shortfall of any surrounding boroughs, like Sevenoaks, he responded firmly: "We are not going to meet the demand of any other borough."

A number of residents asked if the response time could be extended, as they had only just heard about the consultation.

Cllr Boughton said: "Unfortunately, no. We have a race against the clock.

"Every day that we are without a Local Plan we run the risk of inappropriate development happening."

He said he had already attended 25 consultation meetings at village halls and community centres across the borough.

After answering questions for more than two hours, Cllr Boughton was widely praised by those joining in the seminar, who included opposition councillor Mike Taylor (Independent Alliance), who represents Borough Green and Long Mill.

He said: "When Cllr Boughton was elected to the post of leader, he promised transparency and openness - and he has been true to his word."

Cllr Boughton offered that if any residents had any problems with the consultation or the Local Plan they could email him directly on Matt.Boughton@tmbc.gov.uk