As architects and planners strive to meet housing guidance on fitting more homes into small sites, a property developer has spoken out in their support.

Last month, Kings Worthy Parish Council chairman, Dr Adrian March, said planning guidance was "a recipe for tomorrow's slums" and warned that crowding houses on sites would drastically reduce the quality of life for eventual occupants.

He was talking specifically about a planned development at Kings Worthy, near Winchester, which will see 23 houses built in place of the existing five.

But Richard Waite, from Southampton-based Drew Smith Homes, who worked on plans for the site, said: "People thought this guidance was the goose that laid the golden egg for developers, but it's not. The standard of design and the complexity makes it very difficult to achieve.

"It's much more demanding on architects and planning committees to make sure all the requirements are fulfilled and that they also end up with a good design.

"If you tried to get conventional houses on the site in Kings Worthy, it would be impossible. You have to adopt a new frame of mind to achieve this kind of design. Architects can no longer think the way they used to."

He said the planning guidance was introduced about two years ago to increase building on existing sites and prevent the urban sprawl on to greenfield land.

"Many people say it's only guidance but if you read the policy it says it overrides all other planning policy," said Mr Waite.

"My business is to apply the rules as they are. I think planners and planning committees are taking the stick for it."

He added that the policy also said playground or open space had to be includedand it was often much easier to build flats rather than houses.

Developers were not making pots of money out of the new rules, insisted Mr Waite, but just trying to design schemes acceptable to council planners.

In the meantime, Dr March says he remains unhappy about the Springvale Road development, which was approved by Winchester City Council planners in September.

"We will go to the planning ombudsman, on the grounds that the essential information about the project was withheld from the committee when it made its decision.

"I am still hopeful because we cannot possibly have architecture quite that bad in the village," he added.