Eastleigh MP David Chidgey has blasted a government report which, he claims, would lead to a giant Solent City linking Southampton to Portsmouth.

Speaking during a parliamentary debate on new housing planned for the South East, Mr Chidgey poured scorn on proposals for more than one million new homes.

And he claimed the panel appointed by the government had resurrected the spectre of "long-discredited" plans for a Solent City metropolis.

Mr Chidgey added that in the 1960s local people threw out plans to merge Southampton and Portsmouth into one long urban sprawl.

"Nobody wanted to be swallowed up in a giant Solent City and the plans were rightly dropped.

"The last thing people wanted then and want now is to lose the green fields separating the towns and villages along the Solent.

"If the government accepts this latest report, Solent City will be forced upon us and distinct local communities will be lost forever."

The Eastleigh MP added that deputy prime minister John Prescott must keep his pledge to abandon "predict and provide" housing policies and preserve the area's ancient villages and towns from more development.

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