​A flood of housing developments could spring up in protected Cotswolds countryside to meet government housing targets.

Cotswold District Council has revealed it cannot deliver a five-year housing supply plan to tie into the national building programme, and must now consider planning applications which fall outside its own strict policies.

Residents fear this could open the floodgates to developments on green field sites in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

In recent weeks, two developers submitted applications for 300 homes each near Moreton-in-Marsh.

The town council objected to one proposal to develop a green field site off Todenham Road.

Chairman Rod Hooper said: “We must accept we’ve got to have developments over the next five years.

“But 600 homes pushed on us right away because the district council is trying to achieve a target is unacceptable.“We also feel Moreton’s whole infrastructure, including flooding, sewerage, and transport networks, should take place before houses are built.

“Any development should also be on brownfield sites not on greenfield or AONB land.

“Land at Upper Rissington is a brownfield site – yet Cotswold District Council is fighting developers Reland Ltd at appeal – if it wants to meet targets surely this site is ideal?”

A district council report to an Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting this week admitted it may have to look at new sites currently outside its Local Plan.

It said: “As we are currently unable to demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites, national planning policy requires us to give favourable consideration to planning applications that are not consistent with our adopted planning policies.”

Stow-on-the-Wold Mayor Robin Jones felt communities may have to bite the bullet.

“People may not like it and it will give them the opportunity to use sites they may not normally use,” he said.

“But they have got the right to do it in an emergency.

“People have got to have houses. There aren’t enough in Stow and that’s why we’re doing a housing needs survey.”

The council says one of the main reasons it may have to be more lenient is because it has ‘fallen behind’ its target to deliver its new Local Development Framework to Government by December 2010.

The crucial document, set to replace its current Local Plan, will indicate where future housing development will be in the district and will be used by Whitehall as a national guide.

Now it does not look likely to be adopted before December 2011. District council forward planning manager Chris Vickery said a council ‘guidance note’ to its planning officers read: “Applications proposed on sites that do not accord with the Local Plan will only be considered favourably if they adjoin the development boundary of one of the 10 principal settlements identified in the Local Plan.”

He added: “These include towns like Cirencester and Moreton-in-Marsh, but not the vast majority of villages in the district.

“Although such sites are 'off plan', development would accord with the Local Plan's Strategy, which requires the majority of growth to be located in the most sustainable locations.”