A “monstrous” plan to build sub-standard flats in New Malden was condemned as an insult to Kingston Council.

In a stinging rebuke to the latest Barratt Homes plan to redevelop the former petrol station site in Kingston Road, the Maldens and Coombe neighbourhood committee recommended the council send a message to greedy developers by throwing it out.

Mayor of Kingston Councillor Ian McDonald said: “This is an application that must be refused. It has not been driven by the needs of the local community. This has been driven by greed.

“This is not building homes for local people. This is about building the slums of tomorrow, not the homes of today.

“We should be sending a very strong message to people because it is an insult to this council. This is unacceptable.”

In November, Barratt’s submitted a fourth planning application to redevelop the site, this time proposing to build 51 flats with an underground car park with an entrance on Cleveland Road, a residential side street.

According to London’s planning laws, 50 per cent of new large-scale developments should contain affordable housing for the borough’s key workers - this plan offered no affordable homes at all.

Adam Beamish of Cunane Town Planning, speaking on the developer’s behalf, claimed the poor state of the housing market made it financially unviable to provide affordable housing on the site.

Nicola Smith, a Kingston planning officer, said Barratt would have to provide a detailed financial assessment to prove this because the council was “unconvinced” by the developer’s claim it was unable to provide low-cost housing.

Committee chairman Councillor Patrick Codd formally recommended that the council’s Development Control Committee throw out the application when it considers it [when], on the grounds of being too dense, units being too small, unacceptable design and for having no affordable housing.

Coun Codd added: “We have got in the UK the smallest amount of living space in the developed world – including Japan. This is town cramming on the most monstrous scale.”

The decision drew cheers and applause from a busy public gallery, including from Cleveland Road residents Anchal Grewal and Maureen Spoczynska, who passionately spoke against the application on behalf of the Beverley Ward Residents Association.

Speaking to the Comet after the meeting, Mr Beamish simply said: “The meeting went pretty much how we expected it to go.”

The committee’s recommendation has now been formally sent to Kingston Council’s Development Control Committee, which is likely to decide the planning application’s fate in February.