Controversial plans for a massive new housing estate have been approved after an impassioned plea to help the homeless.

Councillors granted outline permission for 875 houses on farmland at West Durrington, on the outskirts of Worthing, despite a storm of protest which led to police ejecting noisy demonstrators.

Environmental activists, furious at the loss of 99 acres of countryside, including 275 trees, stormed the stage at the Assembly Hall on Friday night. Police removed up to 20 hooter-blowing, banner-waving protesters from the venue and later found two panniers containing eggs outside.

The meeting of the borough council's development control committee was suspended for 15 minutes until order was restored.

Councillors finally decided to back the development after four hours of discussion, by which time most of the 140 people in the audience had left.

Councillor Ann Barlow, the council's executive member for housing, said: "There are more than 2,200 households on the housing register, with 880 families with young children looking for accommodation in the borough.

"In the last three months 147 households have been in temporary accommodation. That's the reality of what's happening in Worthing."

The planning application included 220 low cost homes which would help solve the housing problem.

There was concern that people from other parts of the country, including Brighton and London, might be housed on the new estate.

But Coun Barlow said the vast majority of those on the register were Worthing-based.

Despite introducing a hosepipe ban north of the Downs in West Sussex, Southern Water said there was enough water to supply the new estate.

Coun James Doyle questioned how secondary school pupils would get to schools more than 1.5km away. He also called for access to the estate via a roundabout on the A27 rather than Titnore Lane, a winding country road where most of the 275 trees would be felled.

The committee's decision to support the scheme will now be passed to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who might call in the plans for further scrutiny. Further detailed applications from the developers are expected once Mr Prescott's views are known.