Plans for new homes - which neighbours claim threaten their human rights - have been narrowly approved by councillors.

The block of four apartments and two detached houses will be built on land in Seabrook, near Hythe, which is currently occupied by a single house.

Folkestone and Hythe District Council’s planning and licensing committee approved the application for Naildown Road by six votes to five at its meetings last week.

Prior to the meeting, letters had been sent to the council by concerned residents criticising the “overbearing and overwhelming” development.

Even Hythe Town Council objected, arguing the new apartments are “over-intensive and out of character with the street scene”.

It also raised concerns over “insignificant parking spaces” as well as “overlooking issues, and a loss of sunlight to the surrounding dwellings”.

Alexa Thompson and David Keeling, who live nearby, said the apartments will “deprive us of all privacy in our rear private garden”.

They added the height of the apartments “would give immense opportunity to occupants of the proposed apartment block to capture on film or digitally, ourselves, our visiting friends and family, many of whom have children”.

“This too is a breach of our privacy under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act,” they claimed.

However agents acting for developers High Tide Propco Hythe Ltd said the designs are in keeping with the “mixed” style of the neighbourhood.

Cllr Jim Martin (Green), member for the ward where the development will be, raised concerns over density.

“I think by replacing one home with eight is going to give us a real problem in terms of road capacity, sewer capacity, just about any kind of capacity you like”, he said.

"If we replaced every house in Hythe with eight we’d have a town the size of Norwich”.

He was later corrected by the planning officer that the development includes six dwellings, not eight.

Cllr Jackie Meade (Lab) argued that the density of the development “will amount to 40 dwellings per hectare” in violation of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which recommends 30 dwellings per hectare.

She also said: “Obviously whoever lived in the house originally was lucky they had a lot of land there.

"However, I do think that this is over-intensity on this piece of land.”