An MP, councillors and campaigners rallied together on Saturday in opposition to sacrificing greenbelt land for development.
Banstead’s MP Crispin Blunt defended the greenbelt at a conference held by the Surrey Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) at Dorking Halls.
Mr Blunt said: "This is London’s greenbelt and we don’t have the right to give it away to developers."
He said CPRE was right to insist that housing targets imposed on Surrey were ‘unrealistic and unsustainable’ and should be reduced.
The conference voted overwhelmingly to oppose the loss of greenbelt and countryside and urged councils to safeguard greenbelt boundaries.
Surrey County Councillor Ian Beardsmore told participants there was a deep distrust in Government willingness to defend the greenbelt.
He went on to describe John Prescott and Eric Pickles as the ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee of an environmental nightmare’.
He said: "There is clearly a need for more housing but the sort of numbers coming out of Whitehall are absurd."
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