Campaigners are dismayed that the Government has rejected an audit of the county's infrastructure, to ensure it could cope with scores of planned new homes.

Meg Munn, a junior minister, threw out demands for surveys to check that water services, schools and hospitals could support thousands of new residents.

She dismissed an attempt by Wealden MP Charles Hendry to compel the Government to carry out infrastructure audits before the first bricks were laid.

Proposing a backbench Bill in the House of Commons, Mr Hendry said: "The South-East faces unprecedented and unwanted pressure for new houses. The infrastructure is already creaking and there is grave concern about the implications if many new houses are built before the infrastructure is improved to accommodate them."

In March, the South-East England Regional Assembly (Seera) told the Government the region could cope with 28,900 new homes a year.

But a Government report examining the impact of building up to 60 per cent more houses than Seera suggested sparked "real concern" that ministers were determined to impose even higher levels of house building in the South-East, Mr Hendry said.

The Tory MP cited research by Mid Sussex District Council which estimated that each local authority earmarked for significant numbers of new houses needed an additional £1 billion to pay for the necessary infrastructure.

There was pressure on hospital beds, school places, water and roads, he warned.

Mr Hendry said: "The Bill would not prevent what we consider to be the Deputy Prime Minister's disastrous legacy of housing development in the South-East but it would make it much more difficult for the Government to impose those new houses without proper provision being made for the infrastructure necessary to support them."

Ms Munn, a minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government, responded by describing the Bill as "sophisticated nimbyism".

She said the Bill, "would add absolutely nothing to the processes that we already have in place.

"The current planning processes and the regional spatial strategies, linked with the local development framework, do everything that the Bill sets out to do."

Mr Hendry's Bill suffered a defeat after the Government prevented it from completing its Second Reading. It stands little chance of becoming law.

Peter Jones, leader of East Sussex County Council accused the Government of arrogance, saying it was not listening to the people.

He said residents would accept a reasonable amount of housing but they "did not want to live in a concrete jungle".

He said: "We live in a very beautiful part of the world and we don't want to see it ruined for future generations.

"The proposals Seera came up with in the South-East plan were as much as the South-East can cope with, given the likely infrastructure we will have in the future. The higher numbers of houses the government is proposing are wholly unrealistic and they don't take into account the real pressures on water, sewage treatment and road and rail networks.

"Unless they are prepared to start investing in the most successful area, the South-East, why should we put up with their building?"