MORE than 64,000 people and organisations sent in their views on the draft South East Plan, which sets out options for housing growth and economic development for the region over the next 20 years.

Almost four million Your Shout consultation documents went to homes in the region from the South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA), which prepared the plan.

SEERA, set up in 1999, covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East and West Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, and Surrey.

Housing is the most high-profile part of the plan and people were given a choice of three options for annual housing growth; 25,500, 28,000 and 32,000.

The responses have been counted, but not analysed. Anecdotal evidence is that people want the lowest figure which represents the current housebuilding rate.

SEERA's planning committee will get a report on the results on June 13 and the full assembly will make a decision on July 13. Local councils in Buckinghamshire will then start looking at how the plan will affect them.

But there are fears that if SEERA backs a lower figure the Government may step in with its own plans to beef up the numbers.

A spokesman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) said it was in talks with Southampton and Portsmouth councils and the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire, which had suggested they could take 80,000 more homes.

But a new growth area, the Solent Gateway, had not been announced and was merely an option under consideration to meet the shortfall in homes in the South East.