AN appeal to stop the build of 200 homes in a village is set to be rejected by councillors.

Last month, Middleton St George Parish Council submitted an objection letter to Darlington Borough Council’s planning department in relation to amended plans to build 198 homes on land off High Stell.

Outline planning permission was initially granted in February 2016, but the parish council said in February it still “strongly objects” to the amended plans.

The plans will be discussed by Darlington Borough Council's planning committee tomorrow, but council documents published ahead of the meeting state they will only be discussing certain details of the plans, as the "principle of residential development of this land for up to 200 dwellings has already been established."

Parts of the plans up for discussion will be appearance, landscaping, access and car parking, layout and scale.

In the objection letter, Alan Macnab, Middleton St George Parish Council clerk, said: “The local planning authority should be enabled to pay full attention to the strength of local feeling against this development where it is expressed on rational grounds.

“There is no realistic prospect of creating any robust long-term traffic management in the village centre. Rather, it will get progressively worse due to the fact that more planning permissions have been granted.

“Middleton St George cannot be regarded as sustainable, and consequently should not be expected to take on the number of houses targeted for the village.”

However, planning documents state: "The majority of objections to this application submitted to the Local Planning Authority relate to issues that were considered by officers and the planning committee during consideration of the outline application and cannot be revisited unless material considerations dictate otherwise.

"Issues such as, for example, traffic impacts from the development of this land for up to 200 dwellings have already been considered by members at the outline stage and approved.

"Officers consider there have been no material change in circumstances since the outline permission, therefore the only matters that fall for consideration are ones as part of the reserved matters application."

Tempers flared when the outline plans were approved in 2016, with cries of “shame on you” from residents and loud booing around the room.

Earlier this year, Middleton St George ward councillor Doris Jones warned the village is on the brink of turning into a “small town”.