BATH and North East Somerset Council has urged the government not to force "unforgivable" developments on the area by doubling its housing targets - which could significantly impact Midsomer Norton and Radstock.

Under the Conservatives, the council had been told it needed to build 717 homes a year over the next 20 years but now Labour has more than doubled the target to 1,466 homes a year.

The council had already been considering building a new village to help meet the original housing target — but now one councillor has warned that the number of new homes now needed would be the equivalent of building a new town bigger than any that already exist in North East Somerset.

Council leader Kevin Guy has written to deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, warning that wider reform is needed, not just higher targets. He told her the council welcomed the government’s commitment to tackling the housing crisis, but added: “Proposals with crude targets that potentially facilitate unplanned development would be unforgivable.”

Mr Guy said housing targets and planning reform alone would not deliver “the sustainable and affordable housing that we desperately need” and he had written to her about “six key issues” that needed to be addressed first.

He said: “Firstly, we need to agree how our unique situation will be taken into account in advance of rewriting our Local Plan. We are asking that the government facilitate timely conversations between the local authority, appropriate government departments/agencies and UNESCO to discuss the relationship between World Heritage Site status and planning for sustainable growth in the city.

Bath’s “unique situation” was set out by council cabinet member for built environment, housing, and sustainable development, Matt McCabe, at a council cabinet meeting on September 12. He said: “The problem is that we cannot expand the city of Bath. This is not a greenbelt problem, nor is it necessarily a national landscapes problem, it is a World Heritage listing rule.”

He said that brownfield sites in Bath could deliver about 5,000 homes over the next 20 years but this number could not change just because the government had doubled the area’s target. As a result, most new housing would have to be built across North East Somerset.

Mr McCabe said: “If the government’s new proposals become policy, we would need North East Somerset to take almost 11,000 more homes. Keynsham is currently our largest town at 8,500, Midsomer Norton, Westfield, and Radstock is 9,500. And, as I say, we are 11,000 short.

“That’s not just a new town. That would be the biggest town in North East Somerset.”

The council had “well underway” on preparing its new local plan, setting out where those 717 homes each year should go for the next 20 years, but at the meeting, the council cabinet voted to reset the plan. The council will continue to take the work done so far into account but will need to draw up a plan allowing for twice the number of homes.