South Derbyshire District Council has firmly rejected "unrealistic" and "imponderable" plans which would see it having to find room for twice as many new homes a year as Derby.

Councillors discussed government plans for a "fundamental shake-up" of the planning system.

If the government's planned changes are approved, South Derbyshire would be expected to see more than double the number of homes built in the district each year – 1,209 up from 548.

This would also be double the amount which Derby (624) and Amber Valley (663) would be expected to build, which officers and district councillors are firmly against.

South Derbyshire planning officers explained that the district only has a population of around 100,000 in comparison to Derby which is home to around a quarter of a million people.

Officers fear the district could only cope with the vast increase in expected housebuilding by approving homes on greenfield land.

They wrote: "This is absurd and is fundamentally at odds with the government's stated ambition of 'levelling up', which clearly requires city areas in need of regeneration to accommodate a higher proportion of new housing.

"This level of growth in South Derbyshire cannot be responding solely to local needs.

"Continuing to mandate this high level of growth in the future can only be met by a very significant level of greenfield growth due to the rural nature of the district.

"In contrast there are opportunities to regenerate previously developed land or re-purpose underused areas or buildings in the city and far more emphasis should be put on increasing housing in urban areas where employment land, social infrastructure and other facilities and amenities are located rather than creating new urban extensions which are comparatively poorly related to key infrastructure and existing communities."

The shake-up would see almost all of local decision making on planning applications condensed into 30 months once every decade in the form of a much larger and in-depth Local Plan – future blueprint for development.

Developers typically apply for schemes in two applications, with an initial submission (outline), pitching the broad idea of the project and sealing the backing for building, for instance, a rough number of homes on a certain site.

Meanwhile, a second application would then typically be submitted (reserved matters) to tie up all of the details of the development such as house types, their sizes and layout – by this point the whole idea of the scheme is already approved.

The government's plans would push the sealing of planning approval for certain sites into the local plan, meaning that developers could then sift through these sites and have no cause to believe their applications would be denied.

Councillors, residents and officers could choose which sites are included but the government would set the number of homes it expects to see approved within the plan – currently outlined as 1,209 per year in South Derbyshire – meaning a certain amount would have to be included whether there is local opposition or not.

Officers say it would not be possible to achieve all of this work within 30 months and Cllr Lisa Brown, chair of the council's planning committee, said the authority would need to hire a significant amount of new expert staff.

She said: "It is not realisable. It would put enormous pressure on resources. There are so many imponderables."

Cllr Brown suspected the plans could combine with aims for local government reform, which could also see district councils scrapped.

The plan is aimed at speeding up decision making and, in turn, housebuilding.

Steffan Saunders, the council's new head of planning and strategic housing, said that South Derbyshire, which sees the highest number of new developments built each year outside of London, was "being punished for success".

He also said that because of the way highways firms get their funding, typically in tranches of five to 10 years, they may not be able to provide backing for all of the new projects tied up in the new enlarged local plans – which may entail junction improvements and new road layouts.

This could leave sites approved without the infrastructure to sustain them, worsening traffic issues.

Cllr Paul Dunn said he had "strong disapproval" for the new "Draconian" plan which he said would take away the democratic process of approving developments.

Government reforms could also see the number of affordable homes firms are expected to build drastically reduced while Ministers' expectation would be that the council sees more built.

Developers would only have to contribute a portion of affordable homes if their schemes included 40 homes or more.

Councils typically ask for affordable homes if a scheme has 10 to 15 homes or more.

Cllr Dunn suggested this would see developers building a larger number of small projects to avoid having to pay out for affordable housing.

Meanwhile, the district would be expected to see the number of affordable homes built per year increase from 204 to 552.