Council chiefs have promised that they will not allow green belt land around Bath to be used for housebuilding.

The new coalition Government will allow local authorities to determine the number of new homes needed in their areas – ending a system where targets were imposed from above.

Now the leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council has confirmed that the new regime lifts any threat to land around Newton St Loe and at Odd Down and South Stoke.

Energetic campaigns had been fought in both areas over suggestions in a B&NES blueprint that they might be suitable for "urban extensions".

But council leader Councillor Francine Haeberling says such plans are now "dead in the water".

In a letter to the Chronicle, she said the council would now be reviewing the figures – based on demands from the previous Labour Government – in its Core Strategy Spatial Options document.

She said targets set by the previous Government, which had wanted to see 21,300 new homes built in B&NES in the next two decades, had been "unsustainable, based on no real logic or evidence, and would have meant building on swathes of green belt land".

"New proposals will be brought forward which are based upon real evidence of local need and economic growth. We have already confirmed that, given the fact we have had a recession since the Labour Government's original figures were announced, the high levels of building previously proposed are not deliverable or desirable."

Her ruling Tory administration says that it should be possible to cater for Bath's future housing needs without encroaching on to greenfield sites.

New Communities Secretary Eric Pickles scrapped the previous Government's housing demands within days of entering Whitehall but Mrs Haeberling's pledge is the first detailed statement on the issue.

City MP Don Foster, who had described the old Government's targets as "barking mad", said a balance had to be struck. "We do need a significant increase in affordable housing but there can be no justification for building on greenfield sites. We have a real opportunity now to do our own planning."

A spokeswoman for the NSL Conservation group, set up to fight the suggestion in the Core Strategy that 2,000 homes might be accommodated on Duchy of Cornwall land around Newton St Loe, welcomed Mrs Haeberling's move.

"We have always questioned the housing numbers and proposed that brownfield sites should be prioritised for development. This statement means that B&NES is ready to consider the views of local residents and protect green fields and farmlands – a really positive step forward in local planning and decision-making."

Chair of South Stoke Parish Council, Mark Dunningham, said: "We welcome the fact that this should safeguard the green belt around Bath from future development for at least the period to 2026."

But Mike Grist, director of business development at Bath-based social landlord Somer Housing, said that with nearly 7,000 people on the B&NES accommodation waiting list, the need for more new homes was greater than ever.

He said: "Access to an affordable home remains a serious problem for many people in Bath and north east Somerset despite house prices having fallen from their peak in 2007."

He said research had suggested that 850 new affordable homes were needed every year in B&NES over and above those for sale on the open market.

Letters, page 52