Decisions due in 2025 on thousands of new homes

Planning permission for over 15,000 new homes across Surrey could be granted during 2025.

Applications are due to be heard in Guildford, Epsom and Ewell, Waverley, and West Byfleet.

Elmbridge has been ordered by the government to rethink its local plan, which includes 8,000 homes.

Campaigners have raised concerns about the level of proposed housebuilding in Surrey, but the government insists all parts of the country will have to "play their part".

Elmbridge Borough Council was told in September to rethink its local plan, including adding more affordable housing.

An independent planning inspector has said that building on green belt land could be "justified".

In December Spelthorne's local plan was also paused until January after the Environment Agency raised fears about the increased risk of flooding to existing homes in areas marked for development.

Epsom and Ewell is putting its local plan out to public consultation, with nearly 5,000 new homes included.

The borough is Surrey's smallest in terms of geography but is the county's most densely populated.

Three major applications in Guildford are likely to be decided in 2025, one that would see 1,800 homes built at Gosden Hill, due in February, another 250 on the site of a former car park in Guildford Park Road and 124 planned for land around the cathedral.

Also to be decided in 2025 is a scheme for 461 homes on former green belt land in West Byfleet, and 326 near Farnham.

The Farnham development had been approved, but in October it was blocked by councillors over concerns about its impact on the community and details around its layout, appearance and scale.

Campaigners are considering a judicial review into a government planning inspector's decision to allow 1,730 homes to be built on the site of the former Wisley Airfield.

In October John Goodridge, chairman of the Campaign to Protect Rural England's Surrey branch, told BBC Radio Surrey the organisation was "very concerned about urban sprawl and losing our green spaces", suggesting without them it could become "a suburb of London".

In response, a housing ministry spokesperson said: "We are facing a serious housing crisis so all areas of the country must play their part in building the homes that Britain badly needs.

"We will take a brownfield-first approach to building, so sites which people are desperate to see used will be developed first."

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