When Maidstone Borough Council relented and said it would have granted permission for 220 homes on a greenfield site in Headcorn, the developers may have thought they were going to have an easy ride at the planning inquiry which opened in the Village Hall today.

They were wrong.

Although Maidstone council sent only one representative - principal planning officer Richard Timms - to explain that it now supported the scheme, the appellants, Crabtree and Crabtree Ltd and Shoregrove Ltd, faced a team of 10 opposing speakers from the parish council and a hostile crowd of 127 villagers.

The appeal was sparked after the borough failed to determine the outline application to build at Hazelpits off Kings Road, next to the village primary school, within the allocated time, although the council’s planning committee subsequently ruled - by a vote of six votes to five - that it would have given approval.

The appellants were represented by their agents, DHA Planning, with a team led by one of the firm’s directors, Martin Page.

Planning inspector Michael Bonniface conducted the hearing in the form of a “structured discussion” rather than the usual strictly formal court setting with cross-examination by barristers.

He also largely allowed the occasional spontaneous outbursts of applause from the public that greeted the opponents' speeches.

Parish council chairman Lyn Selby told the hearing that Headcorn, a rural community, was having its individuality overlooked by urban borough council.

She said the proposed scheme would create an estate two and a half times bigger than any other development the village had ever had.

Parish councillor John Crawford told the inspector that Headcorn was in a David and Goliath situation, fighting the might of both the developers and the borough council.

He pointed out that the application, by adding 20% to the village housing stock, would be the equivalent of adding 20,000 extra homes in urban Maidstone.

That figure was disputed by Mr Page, who argued the application would increase the village housing stock by only around 15%.

After the hearing concludes today, the inspector will make a formal site visit. His decision is not expected for several months.