Green Belt land will have to be built on in order to meet growing housing demand Stevenage Borough Council has said.

At a meeting last week planning officers said they did not have enough brown field sites to build on to meet targets.

It was also revealed that the initial ideas for the borough’s local plan had been scrapped after future population figures turned out to be wrong.

The council was originally told to expect about 5,300 more people, but that figure was later revised to approximately 7,000. Officers were told to scrap their plans and start again last year.

A spokeswoman for the council said: “Stevenage Borough Council is committed to providing housing and economic growth to meet the needs of its local population.

“We expect to be consulting on this later in the year, once we’ve received updated population and household projection figures from the government.”