AN MP has called for an investigation into the encroachment on "architectural gems" in Egglescliffe.

Stockton South MP Dari Taylor believes the quality of living and the environment are being destroyed by a constant influx of planning applications to build houses and blocks of flats around the parish.

She said that for more than three years, Egglescliffe Parish Council and local residents had protested against the loss of Victorian and Edwardian houses and mature trees to make way for the developments

Mrs Taylor has taken her constituents' case to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who has instructed Government officials to investigate.

"I feel very anxious about what is happening," she said. "Egglescliffe is a very pleasing architectural village but residents are having to watch large, beautiful houses being knocked down. Big gardens and trees are also disappearing

"There have been preservation orders on trees and builders have still cut them down. They have spoiled the environment and the quality has been lost.

"Profit is being put before people and profit is defining and reducing the environment and making it worse.

"I want reassurance from the Government stating that if Stockton Council turns down one of these plans to maintain the quality of living and the environment, it will not be landed with a legal appeal case which could cost local people in excess of six figures."

In a bid to protect greenfield sites, the Government has urged developers to build on derelict, disused locations.

The builders' response to new planning guidance - known as PPG3 - has been to demolish buildings and the grounds in which they stand, so creating a brownfield site, and then rebuild.

Mrs Taylor said: "The major problem is when an Edwardian or Victorian house is demolished it is defined as a brownfield site, and developers can decide how it is built on.

"We have enough brownfield sites so there is certainly no need to encroach on the architectural gems in our community.

"I want the Deputy Prime Minister to support Stockton Council in protecting this environment of quality living.

"He promised me that Government officers would investigate and come back to me. We have got to have the courage and the guts to ask them to save the quality people want to maintain."

Egglescliffe Parish Council chairman, Coun Sue Ireland, said the parish council was powerless to stop the wave of planning applications but was delighted that Mrs Taylor had taken up the fight.

"Everything is geared to the developer. Legitimate objectors don't have a chance," she said.