A West Cumbrian village wants to create a plan to stop over-development despite warnings a similar bid "caused civil war" in a nearby town.

Seaton Parish Council is gathering information on how to create a neighbourhood plan in an attempt to gain greater control over future development.

Councillor Celia Tibble put forward the proposal following a presentation by Allerdale council's planning and implementation manager Simon Sharp at Monday's parish council meeting.

However, coun Tibble warned her colleagues a similar attempt "caused civil war in Cockermouth."

Neighbourhood planning allows communities to choose where they want new homes, shops and offices to be built, have their say on what those new buildings should look like and what infrastructure should be provided.

A group of Cockermouth residents tried to push their town council to support a bid for a neighbourhood plan in the area, but their proposal was rejected on a number of occasion and caused controversy in the town.

Last year Seaton residents organised themselves into the Low Seaton Anti-development Group to campaign against speculative development in the village. It came after Allerdale's development panel approved schemes for 43 self-build plots on Lowca Lane, a 69-home estate by Story Homes at High Seaton and 105 homes by the trustees of the Copsey family at Low Seaton in a short amount of time.

Parish councillors voiced their concerns to Mr Sharp on over-development at Monday's meeting.

Councillor Danny Horsley said there are 17 families already waiting to get their children into the village's junior school - and this is before new developments are built and homes occupied.

He said: "I can't see where the children that will come to leave in Seaton will go to school. You can't keep cramming them like sardines. The junior school was never built for the amount of children it has now."

Councillor Joe Sandwith said: "Everything is at saturation point in Seaton, the drains, the roads, the schools. It's going to be totally horrific for the residents of Seaton when more houses are built."

Mr Sharp told councillors: "I know that housing development in Seaton has been a massive issue, planning is always controversial and I make no excuse for the fact that it sometimes has the ability to have a real negative impact on communities when the balance is in favour of the developer, which it is."

During his career, Mr Sharp worked in Lincolnshire for 26 years, before moving to Cumbria four months ago. He said he was surprised to discover there were no neighbourhood plans in Allerdale, whereas in Lincolnshire almost 50 per cent of parishes adopted one.

He said a neighbourhood plan would afford some protection to Seaton and added: "Seaton is vulnerable to speculative development, it's where developers want to build."

Councillors agreed to invite back Mr Sharp at a future meeting to get more information on neighbourhood planning.