CROSS border conflicts have been aired as plans are drawn up to shape development across the area over the next 20 years.

South Bucks District Council (SBDC) and Slough Borough Council (SBC) have come to loggerheads over their Local Plans, which is a government requirement to fulfill housing needs in the area by 2036.

Options for development were discussed by councillors at meetings last week, with concerns raised about releasing Green Belt land and infrastructure developments to match the potential rise in amount of houses in Slough and villages in South Bucks.

Councillors had "grave concerns" about some of the 15 initial options put forward for development as part of the joint local plan between SBDC and Chiltern District Council, especially around the site north of Iver Heath which includes Iver Heath Fields, with more than 30 members of the Save Iver Heath Fields group attending the SBDC overview and scrutiny committee meeting on Monday last week.

Iver Heath Cllr Luisa Sullivan said: "I have great concern that this is such a large area south of the Pinewood Studios development, and if that area is released from Green Belt as a potential option then it could detriment Iver Heath. It would break the Green Belt entirely and I have expressed grave concern about that."

The government is requiring local authorities to draw up plans for development to meet housing and business needs and requires plans to be approved by early 2017, but has threatened to intervene if areas of "high housing pressures" do not have a plan.

Cllr Guy Hollis, chairman of the committee, questioned why the council was being forced into developing areas to meet a predicted housing need and said the threats from government were "hollow".

SBC discussed its options at a planning committee meeting on Wednesday, with Paul Stimpson, planning policy lead officer, saying that a 'garden suburb' to the north of Slough in South Bucks was one of the best of 11 options for development.

He said: "It is not a gimmick, we really do think that if we build in these areas then we could get a new garden city and we could get the family houses there, balancing out what we are building elsewhere in the borough which will predominantly be flats."

Mr Stimpson added that SBC met with the Department for Communities and Local Government this week about potentially conducting a parliamentary review of the Local Plan once it had been drawn up if SBDC does not release land for Slough.

SBDC is due to discuss its preferred options at a joint meeting with Chiltern District Council on Wednesday, while SBC will produce a further report to be heard by the planning committee on November 2.