Chief executive of Arun District Council Ian Sumnall said he feared the Government's seeming desire to create a new town alongside the River Arun would put Bognor's resurgence at risk. Bognor was on the brink of emerging from 20 years without serious financial investment to be transformed into a modern successful coastal town.

But at least some that influx of hundreds of millions of pounds could be diverted by private companies to Ford if the government gives the go-ahead to a scheme which wil cover an area equal to the pier to Marine Park Gardens to Shripney Lane and over to the Glenwood estate.

Mr Sumnall warned that the eco-town, the Arun district's biggest single development, could be approved by the government riding roughshod over local public opinion for an election gesture of creating more housing.

"We will have no control and little influence over this scheme," he claimed. "The government is being the promoter, judge and jury." The final decision was expected within a year.

Because the eco-town was bypassing the usual planning system, it could be used as a precedent by other developers wanting to build elsewhere in the district.

Mr Sumnall stated: "The government has created a free for all in terms of future planning."

Intending to put several thousand affordable homes at Ford was a hamfisted attempt to overcome the chronic shortage of such properties in the area.

Arun's head of planning services, Howard Cheadle said: "Ford is absolutely the wrong place to build if you are trying to meet the housing need in Bognor and Littlehampton.

"Five thousand houses is certainly not sufficient to satisfy all the infrastructure that is required by the eco-town and then pay for all of the development."

It was unclear if the housing at Ford would be in addition to the council's existing housing target or could be counted as part of it.