The stark message emerged from a public meeting last Thursday where residents feared the town could become 'a concrete jungle' with too many flats to 'skew the social mix'.

The meeting at Oathall Community College was organised by the town council in response to the district council's draft core strategy on where to put 17,100 homes by 2026.

Town Mayor Margaret Baker said: "We have no relief road; infrastructure is inadequate and Bolnore Village is still unfinished. The rural lobby has been so strong we have taken the pressure in their place. The level of development in urban areas is unsustainable."

Councillor Paddy Henry added: "We should not allow anyone to make a concrete jungle out of our town. Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath have taken the brunt of an enormous amount of development. Burgess Hill got a lot out of it: the Jane Murray Way relief road and The Triangle leisure centre. We have got nothing. There will have to be dispersal of housing to places that hitherto have not wanted to take it."

The town council 'cautiously supports' reduced housing numbers on plots to the north of Cuckfield by-pass; on Penland farm between Haywards Heath and Cuckfield; in Lindfield parish between Gravelye Lane and Scamps Hill and on a plot to the north east of Lindfield High Street.

But it opposes draft proposals in the core strategy to develop land in its own back-yard to the south and south west of the town at Sandrocks and Hurst Farm, believing the relief road should form Haywards Heath's southern boundary.

Barbara Woods from the Referendum Group said: "When they build up to 4,000 houses on the northern arc of Burgess Hill I see a very narrow strip between the towns and we could have an urban sprawl larger than Crawley."

Reacting to figures that show Haywards Heath has the highest proportion of flats in the county at nearly 27 per cent, a Fox Hill resident predicted: "More buy-to-let flats could go over to social housing in the recession and skew the social mix."

In response to residents' concerns over delays to the relief road, head of planning for the district, Claire Tester, said a planning inspector had allowed Crest Nicholson to build another 310 dwellings in phases four and five of Bolnore Village before starting on the remaining section of the relief road. The housing slump meant the quota had not been reached.

The district council will decide on the core strategy in January.