HOUSING targets for the Isle of Wight are unachievable and a nonsense, MP Bob Seely has warned government.

He said he knows 'not a single Tory voter in the last election' who voted for the significant greenfield development which is planned under the new Standard Method for house-building, which accompanies the government’s White Paper on housing, Planning for the Future.

While there are decreases in housing targets in generally Labour-controlled Midlands and northern cities and towns, the same cannot be said for rural and suburban England.

Mr Seely believes plans to back housebuilding in strong Conservative areas such as the Isle of Wight will backfire and aren't welcomed by constituents.

He is among a group of senior Tory backbenchers, said to have warned the Prime Minister that the housing proposals will spell electoral doom.

Mr Seely said: "This is likely to result in a tsunami of local anger from those who believed they could trust a Conservative government not to concrete the countryside.

"It will fire up our political opponents and may suppress our support in future elections.

"Take my constituency, the Isle of Wight — the proposals will see our target increased by over 50 per cent.

"Half the Island is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, yet we will be ordered to build more houses per year than either Portsmouth or Southampton, both cities with major infrastructure and services, and populations almost 70 per cent larger. This is just nonsense.

"Why? First, our services and infrastructure are already overwhelmed with the increases we have already had.

"We have basically the same Victorian country lanes we had two centuries ago, minus most of our railways.

"Second, we are dependent on a tourism economy that crammed roads and shoe-horned housing estates will undermine.

"Third, our Island building industry produces between 250 to 400 homes per year. It can’t build more. Our current targets are already unachievable.

"The government might as well order the Island’s Council to develop a moon landing programme for all the likelihood of achieving these new targets."

He believes the housing increase won't help the Island's young, because the wrong types of homes are being built.

"We need one and two bed homes for residents, built in sensitive numbers in existing communities, with rent-to-buy schemes to support the young.

"We get three and four bed, generic (sorry, ‘superior’) housing in soul-destroying, low density, greenfield estates because that is what suits developers.

"From all sides of the political spectrum, people are fed up."

Mr Seely said he is strongly making the case for the Island and talking to the secretary of state for housing.