A former cabinet minister has revealed how the government tried to change European legislation to move nightingales from Lodge Hill, Chattenden, and clear the way for a massive housing development but were thwarted by red tape.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, Owen Paterson, former Secretary of State for Environment and Rural Affairs, said he had contacted a Slovenian commissioner to discuss moving the birds so plans to build 5,000 homes on the former Army camp could go ahead.

He was discussing how rare species like newts and nightingales often stall building programmes but EU directives made it difficult to move them.

He said: “There was another case of nightingales in Chatham [sic] where the MoD, to save money, stopped cutting the grass because they intended to flog the site. Some nightingales thought ‘this is a rather convenient habitat’, took up residence and it turned out you can’t move them.”

As a result, he said, both he and the Defence Secretary at the time, Philip Hammond, had a “frightful time” trying to resolve the issue.

Mr Paterson said: “I went to see a Slovenian commissioner for the environment and I told him we were pro-newt and nightingale and we wanted to politely move them in order to help our building programme and wouldn’t do anything that was deleterious to them, but that required some changes to the directive.

“He said putting this legislation… was a complete nightmare, getting 27 countries to agree to an adaptation of these conventions was almost impossible. It was such a fraught experience. ”

He described it has a great example of how European law did not work: “We now have a wonderful opportunity to forge a whole new framework [after Brexit]. It’s a wonderful opportunity for our environment.”

Despite the furore over the nightingales, the Lodge Hill plans were approved by Medway Council more than two years ago, but they were called in by the Department for Communities and Local Government in February 2015 – a power only used in exceptional circumstances, less than 1% of all planning cases.

A public inquiry was due to take place this summer but was delayed for the third time after the Ministry of Defence, the applicant behind the plans, asked for more time for environmental surveys to take place.

As well as the homes, the plans include three primary schools, a secondary school, medical facilities, leisure and shops, said to provide up to 5,000 jobs.

The plan suffered a blow in September last year when the developers Land Securities pulled out, but the inquiry will still go ahead as the council remain in support of the project.