Don’t panic! That was the message that emerged from Tonbridge and Malling council to its residents this morning as the borough published details of its “interim sites assessment” - the list of locations that could be developed for housing in the next Local Plan.

The list of 262 plots is the outcome of a Call For Sites, completed last September, when developers and landowners were invited to submit suggestions for potential development plots.

At this stage, the council has graded the sites with a broad brush, as red, amber and green, with red indicating the suggestions conflicted with national planning policies, amber that they accorded with policies but were thought undeliverable, and green suggesting they accorded well with national policies and were deliverable.

If all the green and amber sites were adopted they could yield 20,000 new homes, but planning policy manager Ian Bailey said: “All the sites will have to be assessed against local policies and will all be subject to public consultation.

“There is no certainty that any particular site will get planning permission.”

In addition, the council’s assessment of its housing need for the plan period, which runs from 2011 to 2031, is only 13,460 new homes.

The other good news is that the borough is well ahead, with planning permissions already granted or in the pipeline, or sites already allocated in the previous Local Plan, reducing the need for new sites considerably.

Taking away the 1,933 homes already completed since 2011, permissions of 4,721 already granted, allocations in the old plan of 83, and an estimate for windfalls of 720 reduces the number of new homes the council has to find room for to just 6,723.

The councillor leader Cllr Nicolas Heslop (Con) said: “Probably we will need fewer than half these (newly listed) sites.”

Mr Bailey said: “People will tend to focus on the figures, but having a lot of sites to choose from will give us the opportunity to choose the best.”

The borough will hold a public consultation in September, called Issues and Options, when the public will able to comment not just on any individual building sites, but on the wider policy approach.

Louise Bailey, head of planning, suggested there could be a number of approaches the public might prefer. Some options could bring useful strategic benefits to the wider community, such as a new road link for example.

She said: “There could be some positive choices to be made.”

Cllr Heslop suggested the Peters Village development already under way was an example of where a development had brought significant benefits, in the form of a new road bridge over the River Medway at Wouldham, cutting journey times for many people.

The proposed sites in the interim assessment would continue to be tested up till the September consultation, and there could be further refinements before then.

Cllr Heslop said: “Some people will look at the list and think: ‘Oh my goodness, I’m going to have something built behind my house’, but that is not necessarily the case. This is at a very early stage.”

Or as deputy leader Cllr Martin Coffin (Con) put it rather more poetically: “The journey is only just starting...”

Asked if he anticipated that any particular development site on the list was likely to cause exceptional public concern, Cllr Heslop declined to suggest one. “I wouldn’t want to be judgemental,” he said.

Tonbridge and Malling starts its journey in a far better position than many of its neighbouring authorities.

It can demonstrate it already has a 5.2-year housing supply, even without allowing for windfall sites. The figure is crucial because the Government’s current planning policy makes it very difficult for authorities to refuse to grant planning permission if they can’t pass a five-year-supply threshold.

Mr Bailey said: “It’s a good place to be. It means we have the breathing space to make the right choices.”

*The Interim Sites Assessment is available on the council’s website, where the sites can also be viewed on an inter-active map. Visit www.tmbc.gov.uk/callforsites