Councillors who opposed the controversial King Alfred development have failed in their bid to have the last-minute decision scrutinised.

The Tories had written to Alan McCarthy, Chief Executive of Brighton and Hove City Council, asking him to inspect the 11th hour deal struck by councillors at a committee meeting last week.

Tories said the amendment proposed by the Green Party and adopted by the policy and resources committee last Thursday was "not worth the paper it was written on".

It allowed developers Karis to take architect Frank Gehry's proposals to build 751 homes and a leisure centre at the Hove site to the crucial planning stage.

The amendment in question reads: "The council is committed to work with the developer, for them to provide a meaningful proportion of the scheme in another location in order to enable it while reducing the overall impact."

Officers have been asked to draw up a possible list of alternative sites for housing, which so far includes 276 affordable homes, following the amendment. Preston Barracks is seen as the front-runner after plans for a multi-million pound development at the site stalled last month.

Councillors have since debated the strength of the agreement that made the King Alfred deal possible.

Conservative councillors voted against the plans and have since threatened to ask the Government to inspect the decision. They asked Mr McCarthy to call in the decision in an official letter delivered on Wednesday night.

Brian Oxley, Conservative leader, said: "There has to be clarity about the decision. As the word meaningful' is undefined we asked the Chief Executive to call it in because it is meaningless."

Tories said the Government could only call the decision in when it has reached planning stage, but are unsure whether they will seek such action.

Councillor Garry Peltzer Dunn added: "Until then it has to go to the Chief Executive because the decision was totally beyond the pale and should have been ruled out of order."

Mr McCarthy has written to the party, stating he would not be calling the decision in as it was beyond his powers.

It will, however, be discussed at a project board meeting dedicated to the scheme's future.

He wrote: "My role as Chief Executive is only to look at whether the request satisfies the basic procedural pre-conditions set out in the constitution rather than the actual merits of the request.

"I therefore hope you will forgive me if I do not go into what happened at policy and resources or the details of the reasoning behind the request."

After receiving the letter, Coun Oxley said: "Obviously I'm disappointed but I'm pleased we're going to have some future discussions on how we're going to take the King Alfred forward."