Councillor David Jackson from Thornaby Town Council says although the Tees Valley does have a so-called green wedge, this offers no permanent protection from further developments.

He told BBC Radio Cleveland that the Tees Valley was one of the only places left in the country not to have a protected area of designated green belt land.

Mr Jackson said: "The big question is why Teesside is not entitled to a green belt.

'Ongoing battle'

"If Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland need green belt, then why doesn't Teesside."

Joanne Aga, north east chair of the Council for the Protection of Rural England said: "We set up a group in Stockton because, looking at the regional planning guidance proposals, we became very concerned there were a lot of proposals for new developments.

"These could possibly go through unnoticed unless an environmental group started to make some noise about it.

"However, we haven't had much success yet. It is an ongoing battle."

Short lifespan

Gerry Carpenter, senior planning officer from development agency One NorthEast, said there were fundamental and important differences between green wedges and green belts.

He said: "They perform similar functions to try and prevent urban sprawl, but the basic difference is 'belts' are national designations and 'wedges' are local designations.

"Once a green belt is designated it has a lifespan of about 30 years, whereas in the case of a green wedge the lifetime of those is shorter - about five or 10 years - and they are far more easy to review."

At the moment, there are no plans for a green belt designation.

Mr Jackson said future we would like to see areas protected.