A peer advising the Government on changes to planning guidelines is a director of the firm hoping to build a new town of 10,000 homes in Sussex.

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor has come under fire for leading a review on existing planning guidelines while being a paid director and shareholder of Mayfield Market Towns Ltd.

The firm is proposing to build a 10,000-home town on agricultural land ten miles outside Brighton and Hove, near Sayers Common.

Opponents Mid Sussex MP Nicholas Soames and Arundel and South Downs MP Nick Herbert wrote to Government minister Nick Boles expressing concern about the potential conflict of interest.

But Mr Boles has now responded, informing them that he is “satisfied”

that appropriate steps had been taken to avoid a conflict of interest.

In a letter published on the firm’s website, Mr Boles said suggestions Lord Taylor might benefit from his role on the Government’s review group was “unfair” and “unfounded”.

He was appointed to the review in October, which later went on to advise the scrapping of 80% of the 7,000 existing planning rules.

Resistance

The former Liberal Democrat MP is paid £20,000 a year to work for Mayfield for three days a month.

The firm’s multi-million-pound plans for 800 hectares of agricultural land has met strong local resistance and were set back by Mid Sussex District Council last month.

The council said the scheme did not fit with its local plan, which sets out the number of homes which can be built in the area.

But Mayfields has vowed to press on with the plans and appeal to the Government if necessary.

In a statement on the company’s website, Lord Taylor wrote: “The advisory group I chair is explicitly an expert panel and we all have outside interests reflecting our expertise.

“I am unpaid (as are all the group) and I have no role in deciding the final content of guidance.

“NeitheramI involved in any way at all with determining local plans or planning applications.”

Opponents of the town have set up a petition against the proposals.

Organisers hope to collect 100,000 signatures before September to have the issue debated in the House of Commons.